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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24296485">Scavenger</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/iliveatlast/pseuds/iliveatlast'>iliveatlast</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Shiner-verse [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Walking Dead (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Child Abuse, Found Family, Internalized Homophobia, Past Child Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Young Daryl Dixon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:47:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>50,805</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24296485</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/iliveatlast/pseuds/iliveatlast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The prison falls. Everything falls. Now, Daryl just has to figure out how to build something up again. </p>
<p>Season 4, Shiner-verse.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Shiner-verse [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743010</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>62</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Outdoor Cat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"You're not an indoor cat," Carol says to him. </p>
<p>Daryl is sitting in one of the guard towers - the one that got shot up but not destroyed. The others are afraid it isn't stable, so if he goes there, no one bothers him.  <br/><br/>Well. No one except Carol. <br/><br/>She comes up behind him and sits next to him. Their legs dangle over the side of the tower and they face out. The distant growl of walkers is barely noticeable.<br/><br/>"You need me for somethin'?" he asks. He thought he'd done all his chores, but maybe not. He's not trying to hide out from his responsibilities or anything. He just needs some time alone. <br/><br/>"No. Nothing in particular." He grunts. Keeps looking out, towards the woods. The trees are scraggly and bare, not like they were over the summer. Winter's coming, and it's coming fast. <br/><br/>"You miss it out there, huh?"<br/><br/>He shrugs. It's not that he liked life on the road last winter - it had been long and hard and too close, they'd been cold and starving and running, always running, and sure he likes having a dry place to rest his head and a full belly as much as the next person. But it's not the place he works in best. There are people everywhere, too close, and he can feel them watching him sometimes. They knew Will, most of them, the Woodbury people, at least. He can hear them whispering about him sometimes. He'd forgotten, on the road, and with the others, how much he hated being looked at. He'd gotten used to being looked at, looked to, by Rick and Glenn, Hershel and Maggie and Beth, Carl and Michonne. Carol. It didn't feel so much like they were watching and waiting for him to fuck up. But with the Woodbury people, it's all he can notice. They look at his raggedy shirts and his muddy boots, the crossbow he hands on the wall of his cell while he sleeps, his shaggy hair, and he can feel them wondering how he ended up here, why he deserves to be the youth rep for the Council, why he's allowed to play with Judith. He thought he'd earned his place - <em>he had</em>, he told himself, <em>he more than had</em> - but the Woodbury people didn't know that yet, and they watch him like he's a snake in their midst. Like he's not to be trusted. <br/><br/>And they're loud, the Woodbury people. They talk and laugh and call to each other, they make jokes and fight about whose turn it is to wash up and they complain about how damp the prison is, how ugly the concrete walls are. They treat the prison like their home, and Daryl knows it is - Rick brought them in and they belonged here now, that was settled, and it's not like Daryl wants them kicked out. But by making it their home, it didn't feel like his home as much anymore. And that was hard to take. <br/><br/>"You know - the supplies from Woodbury aren't going to last forever," Carol says quietly. They'd raided Woodbury's pantry after they brought everyone over and Daryl had thought it looked like enough food for years. And maybe it would have been, if it were just the nine of them, but there are so many more of them now and the Woodbury people eat like crazy. <br/><br/>"Glenn's doing runs," Carol says, and Daryl grunts. That's the other thing - with the Woodbury people, what he is and is not allowed to do is getting complicated. He's fifteen - he'll be sixteen in summer. (Summer is almost eight months away, but still.) Before all of this, sixteen was meant to be his ticket to freedom. He'd drop out, get a job, move out to live with Merle. He'd be an adult in all the ways that counted. He'd be free. But now he's free of all that stuff and the grown ups can't decide where he fits - with the babies and the grade schoolers from Woodbury, or with the adults, battle hardened, taking watches and killing walkers. Daryl knows which side he belongs on, but the grown ups don't. And so when Glenn goes out on runs, he takes Maggie, he takes Sasha, he takes anyone but Daryl. And no one's let him go hunting in ages. Michonne leaves for days, up to a week sometimes, looking for the Governor, and she always comes back and shakes her head no, she didn't find him. But she still goes out, looking. Daryl doesn't go anywhere. <br/><br/>"Rick said I can't go," Daryl mumbles. It hurt that it was Rick to say it, that Rick made that decision. Rick isn't going either, and neither is Carl. Carl and Rick spend a lot of time together, and Daryl tries to steer clear, as much as he can. He remembers after the fight in the tombs, Carl's face. <em>He's my dad, not yours. </em>Rick isn't his dad. But somehow Rick is still able to say he can't go out, he can't go on runs, he's not supposed to carry his bow around. He's trying not to lose it, trying not to blow up at Rick, because even if he's not in charge he's still a leader, and the people from Woodbury respect him. They wouldn't like it if Daryl screamed at Rick, Rick who finally seems to be putting himself back together. <br/><br/>"Well. Do you want to go?"<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. "M'good at it," he says. He picks at a hole in the knee of his jeans. </p>
<p>"You don't have to do it anymore. There's more people. We can spread the work some."<br/><br/>"They ain't better at being out there than me," Daryl grumbles. He stops himself from saying the other true thing - that many of them are worse.</p>
<p>"I know," Carol says. "Most of them are worse."<br/><br/>He looks at her, surprised, and she smiles at him. "What? I have eyes, don't I?" <br/><br/>Daryl squints at her, then looks down, feeling weirdly bashful. She nudges him with her leg. "Hey." He looks at her. Her eyes are very serious all of a sudden. "This won't last forever." <br/><br/>She means the prison, and it makes his spine shiver. He thinks about Hershel's farm, the Atlanta camp. The world before walkers. Nothing lasts forever. He knows that. Something always happens. Always.<br/><br/>There's a burst of laughter - some of the Woodbury people, clearing one of the side yards of debris. He looks back at Carol. <br/><br/>"So. There's two ways to go. You can enjoy it," she says softly, and Daryl kicks one of his legs. "Who knows the next time there'll be peace? It's not a crime to take a break."<br/><br/>"Or?" he asks. Because he's been taking a break since the Woodbury people came, almost a month, and it hasn't led to much enjoyment. <br/><br/>"Or," Carol says, "You can go to work. Go on runs with Glenn, do some hunting. Do what you were doing."<br/><br/>"Thought I was a kid, ain't meant to -"<br/><br/>"You are a kid," Carol says firmly. "Being a kid means something different now." She pushes his hair - now long enough to hide his eyes - back behind his ear. He lets her. "I'm not worried you'll forget what it's like out there. How to take care of yourself. But I don't want you to - be unhappy." He peeks a look at her. "So what would make you happy, Daryl? What do we do? I don't want you to get so frustrated, cooped up in here, that you run off and get into trouble."<br/><br/>"I ain't gonna run off," he says. He wouldn't, ever. Not when people here are counting on him. Carol smiles at him. <br/><br/>"No, I know. But - let's figure out what to do before you get to that point."<br/><br/>He nods. Kicks his leg. "'S'gonna be deer season," he says finally. "Or I mean - used to be you'd hunt deer in the fall? They're 'round all the time, but -" He wipes at his nose. "Rabbits, too. Rick prob'ly thinks ain't nothin' gonna be out there, woods're asleep, but they ain't. I could go."<br/><br/>Carol nods. "Well, then - you should go."<br/><br/>"Rick said -"<br/><br/>"Let me deal with Rick," she says firmly. "You just remember - just because you're going out there doesn't mean you have to. You want to stop, you want to pal around with Carl or the Woodbury kids -"<br/><br/>"Carl hates me," Daryl mumbles. He doesn't mean to say it - it's a fucking baby thing to say, whining about an eleven year old not liking him - but it comes out anyway. <br/><br/>"He doesn't. He's confused. He's been through a lot. You both have." <br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. <br/><br/>"Give him some time. He'll be back. You've been through a lot together." <br/><br/>He shrugs again. He's not sure that's true, that Carl will be back, but Carol's been right before. Maybe she'll be right this time. <br/><br/>"Thought you din't want me out there neither," he says to Carol. "Said -"<br/><br/>"I said you deserved to have someone taking care of you," Carol says. He feels her fingers, moving his hair away again. "This is care."<br/><br/>He squints off into the trees. Doesn't really know what that means, what she's saying. Decides not to push at it. <br/><br/>"I'll talk to Rick and Hershel. Tonight. All right?"<br/><br/>He nods. Tries not to get his hopes up. But feels them rising anyway, even as he tries to push them down. This is Carol. If anyone could do it, get them to relent, it's her. <br/><br/>"We should head back," she says. "Almost time for supper."<br/><br/>He stands up, brushes himself off. Carol's standing too, next to him, and she gives a small laugh. <br/><br/>"You're going to be taller than me soon." <br/><br/>He feels his cheeks flush. "Stop," he mumbles, and she laughs again, musses at his hair. <br/><br/>"All right, come on. They'll be waiting for us."<br/><br/>And he follows Carol all the way back to the cell block.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Everything is easier when he's allowed outside the fences, and he wonders how Carol knew. </p>
<p>He goes on runs with Glenn or Sasha sometimes - sits in the passenger seat as they silently go from town to town, nabbing supplies, scouting out locations. Sasha likes to play music in the car, she's always looking for CDs, and Glenn is always looking for stuff for Maggie. Glenn and Maggie get married that winter, around the solstice - "The longest night of the year," Hershel says, "is nothing with love like yours to brighten it." It's in the prison chapel, Hershel in a pristine white shirt, fresh suspenders, the prosthetic leg Glenn had found on a run into Newnan allowing him to stand on his own two feet. Maggie doesn't wear a dress, but someone polished her cowboy boots to a fine gleam and she's wearing a white shirt, and Glenn's got a vest, the shiny chain of Hershel's watch stretching across his waist like a promise. The two of them kiss and there's hooting and hollering and someone throws rice (he can hear Karen scolding whoever did it, that's from the store room, that's food, not a toy) and Glenn and Maggie just keep kissing. After that day what's nice to Daryl is that nothing changes - they're exactly the same as they were before the ceremony. He thinks that probably means something.<br/><br/>He goes out alone to the woods around the prison often and comes back with rabbits and squirrels, the occasional crow, a few times a deer. It's nice to be back in the quiet, just him and the trees and the crunch of leaves underfoot, setting snares and tying knots his father taught him. The woods is about the only place he'll let himself think about his dad, and it's not like he knows what he's thinking, really. He just thinks about being out there with his dad before all this happened, camping trips with Merle, his dad teaching him knots. They aren't happy memories, or perfect, but they're something. His dad hadn't given him hardly anything in his life that hadn't hurt, but he'd given him the woods. Daryl's trying to be thankful for that. <br/><br/>Knowing he can get outside makes him feel less antsy, less trapped. He can stand the stares of the Woodbury people better, knowing that if he needs to, he can get away. And being outside, being a provider again, does something to those stares. Instead of looking confused or uncomfortable or unhappy when he walks up, they look happy. "Daryl! Anything good today, Daryl?" It's like he's done magic for them, made something out of nothing, and by doing so, they decide he's one of them. When it starts it makes him a little bitter - what if he hadn't been useful? Would they have ever accepted him, white trash orphan? But then he lets it go, lets them like him. It's easier than the alternative. <br/><br/>He doesn't always find food. Sometimes, he finds people. Ragged groups trying to survive in the woods in winter, or hiding out in stores he and Glenn scout out. Rick has three questions for them, and Daryl will ask them, even though he's not sure he'd be able to answer those questions himself. How many walkers? He doesn't know anymore. How many people? Dale. His dad. The two guys in Woodbury. Who knows how many guys in the attack on the prison. It's got to be closer to ten than not. And he doesn't know why. Sure he could explain, he could tell the story, and maybe in the context of the story, it makes sense, but sometimes he just finds himself wondering why any of this happened at all. <br/><br/>He wonders if Rick could answer those questions. He's not sure. </p>
<p>Rick is different now. His gun is gone, the Colt Python, and he keeps Carl close. They huddle up with Hershel in the library with books and papers and come out with lists of seeds they want, with schematics for how to lay out the garden. Even if Rick goes outside the gate, he won't let Carl go and he won't bring a gun. One day Daryl comes back from hunting to see Carl staring at him from his father's side, his face twisted. Daryl turns away. <br/><br/>Carl is talking to him again, and they hang out sometimes, but it's different. Carl is quieter than before, and Daryl wonders if he's trying to figure out how to live in the prison as much as Daryl is. He asks Rick once, if he could take Carl out into the woods with him, but Rick shook his head. <br/><br/>"I had my way, you wouldn't be out there either," Rick says stiffly. "It's time to get used to living inside again."</p>
<p>Daryl leaves it then, backs away. He doesn't know how Carol got him permission to be out, but he's not going to waste it. <br/><br/>Carl's in charge of the horse Michonne bring back, and that actually seems to be the way they find a peace between them again. Daryl loves the horse. Michonne found him, half starved, reins tangled in a tree - not scraggly enough to have been out there since it happened, but his rider was gone, nowhere in sight, and there was blood smeared on his flank, over the saddle. Carl cleans off the blood and names him Flame. Daryl will go sometimes and help the other boy muck out the stall, brush Flame down. Reminds him of the stables at Hershel's farm. Michonne takes him out mostly. Daryl wonders if he'd be allowed to but remembers Nervous Nellie and resolves not to ask. Maybe in the summer. <br/><br/>He and Carl also seem equally puzzled by the other kids. Some of them are from Woodbury - almost all of them younger than them, real little kids, babies. But there's Patrick, who looks at him and Carl with awe, the Samuels kids, Lizzie whose Carl's age but acts younger and Mika who follows Lizzie, almost taking care of her, they all seem so much younger than them, and Daryl's not sure why. To get as far as the prison, they had to fight, to go through things, just like they did. Didn't they? So how come they seem so fragile, so clueless? He feels united with Carl against them, and Carl too seems to appreciate that Daryl is there, that Daryl doesn't think he's a kid. <br/><br/>There are some older teenagers too, but they seem to count totally as adults. Beth is never counted among the kids anymore, and neither is Zach, even though he's probably not more than nineteen or twenty. Zach is cool - he goes on runs sometimes, as spring kicks in, and he never treats Daryl like a kid. He's always straight with Daryl, like Daryl is his own age, and he defers to Daryl, to Daryl's experience. He hangs out a couple times with Beth and Zach and Zach's friends, and while he doesn't really like it - he thinks maybe he'll just never like things like that, being around people and talking - he likes that they asked him, and he likes listening to Beth sing. She doesn't sing those old Irish songs her dad likes. She sings songs from the radio, songs that seem to belong just as much to a lost and distant world. </p>
<p>Winter fades and things start growing. Rick and Carl work hard, all summer - Carl stops watching the gates as Daryl rides out, on the dirt bike or in a car or by foot. Rick looks different than Daryl's ever seen him. And Carol too - she leads storytime for the kids in the library, and Daryl never goes, but he thinks about it sometimes. He brings her things from runs - stuff like lotion for her hands (she does laundry all winter long and her skin is dry and cracked) or even a book sometimes (although he doesn't know what makes it a good book, a book Carol'd like, and they have the whole prison library so he doesn't do it much.) Once he finds a pin with a white flower on it and he leaves it on her nightstand. She doesn't mention it but he sees it pinned to the inside of her jacket once. He sees her with Judith - Beth takes care of her the most, but Carol does her share. He sees her walking Judith up and down the hallways when she's teething, patting her back gently. But she can never watch Judith for too long - something happens, something passes over her face, and then Beth is there and Carol disappears to her cell for a while. Daryl went after her once, but she told him to go. That's when he found her the pin. He doesn't know what good it does, but maybe something. Maybe. <br/><br/>Maybe not. <br/><br/>Hershel and the Prison Council ask Daryl in every couple weeks. He's meant to talk about the kids, 'the youth community,' as Hershel calls it, and he does, but he finds himself talking about other things too. About the way that the prey in the woods are going, what that might mean for the way the walkers are migrating. About places they could scope out that look virtually untouched, places like the Wal Mart out on 27 or the Big Spot, places that got swarmed so fast that stuff might still be inside. He talks more to the Council than he's talked in his whole life, and Hershel listens. Not to everything, he doesn't agree with Daryl always, but he takes Daryl seriously. The other members of the council, Glenn and Maggie and Carol, they do to, and the Woodbury members, Sasha and Tyreese, they learn to. It makes Daryl feel warm, to have people trust him. Listen to him. <br/><br/>It means something. Something special, he knows that. <br/><br/>Hershel thinks the Big Spot is a good idea. They all do. <br/><br/>"How're you going to get the walkers away?" Hershel asks. He's looking at the map Daryl drew, of the Big Spot, the fences, the surrounding buildings, the ways in and out. Daryl pokes a finger at one of the other buildings. <br/><br/>"We put music here? On the roof? Somethin' loud, draw 'em out. Boom box or somethin'. Glenn and me found one on the last run."<br/><br/>"Batteries'll run out," Carol says. He's glad she's treating this like a real plan, instead of just saying yes. She's treating him seriously. He nods. <br/><br/>"Glenn said, maybe we hook 'em up to car batteries, they'll last longer. We could play it a couple days, give it time to draw 'em. Then when they're gone, we go in. Army put them fences up early - doesn't look like anyone's been in."<br/><br/>"Just because it doesn't look it doesn't mean it's true," Hershel says, but then he nods. "All right. Good find, Daryl." <br/><br/>"Yeah, Daryl. Good find," Glenn says with a straight face. Glenn's the one who drove him around the Big Spot three times on their last run, so he could map it all out. <br/><br/>"Why don't you take point on this," Hershel says, and Daryl looks at him, startled. Hershel isn't smiling at him, but there's a crinkling around his eyes. <br/><br/>"I - me? But -"<br/><br/>"Sasha will go as well," Hershel adds. "As second in command. But you've done the work on this. You should be in charge."<br/><br/>He looks at Sasha, expecting her to look pissed - a fifteen year old (but maybe he's sixteen by now) getting put out over her - but she's grinning at him. <br/><br/>"I'll drive," she said. "It's a good plan, Daryl." <br/><br/>"Put a team together," Hershel says. "Let us know who you pick, when you plan to go."<br/><br/>"I - yeah. A'right. Yes, sir," Daryl mumbles, and his face feels bright red and his tongue feels thick and clumsy. He gets up, gathers his map - his hands are shaking a little and he hopes the others can't tell as he rolls it up, they'll think he's weak, some dumb fucking back, they'll think they shouldn't have put him in charge - <br/><br/>"Thanks," he says finally, everything stowed, and he turns to go. <br/><br/>"Daryl?" Hershel calls. He turns back. Hershel's going to say it's a stupid idea. Daryl isn't good enough, smart enough, brave enough, he isn't -</p>
<p>"Nice work," Hershel says. Carol is smiling at him, not even trying to hide it. <br/><br/>Daryl just nods. He leaves at as normal a pace as he can, but he finds himself running as he gets father from the council room, running like he hasn't run since he was a kid, running because there's just energy running through him and he doesn't know what to do with it but run. <br/><br/>They trust him. And that, Daryl thinks, is enough to make the whole damn end of the world worth it. </p>
<p>At least, that's what he thinks until they go to the Big Spot. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. 30 Days Without An Accident</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It goes okay until it doesn't anymore. </p><p>He feels antsy and electric all day - he can feel Carol watching him as he tries to eat something, not normally something he had a problem with. But his stomach is in knots and he just keeps thinking about all the stuff that can go wrong. People call out to him - Woodbury people, some people he found camping in the woods, the new doctor. He barely hears them. Patrick comes over to him and is fucking weird - thanking him for the deer with stars in his eyes - and Daryl shakes his hand. <br/><br/>"Think someone's got a little crush on you," Carol says teasingly, and Daryl feels himself stiffen. <br/><br/>"He ain't - it ain't like that," he mumbles. Feels his face going red, then white. The knots in his stomach tighten, turn cold. "He - I ain't -"<br/><br/>"Daryl?" Carol says, and she looks a little worried. "It's all right. I'm teasing." <br/><br/>Daryl nods, wipes his hand over his mouth. Pushes to finish the food on his plate. He never lets food waste. He never did, even before the walkers. He wasn't ever in a position where he could, and if he had, his dad would have - </p><p>Stop, he tells himself. Stop. <br/><br/>"You don't have to be nervous," Carol says softly. "It's a good plan. As good as Glenn or Sasha would come up with."<br/><br/>Daryl nods again. Tries to concentrate on the food. <br/><br/>"Stuff could still go wrong," he mutters, eyes focused on the plate. <br/><br/>"It could," Carol says. He likes that she never bullshits him, she doesn't lie. "It always could, though. We've gone a long time without a problem but that won't last forever."<br/><br/>Nothing lasts forever. Daryl knows that. <br/><br/>"But it's an acceptable risk. Hershel wouldn't sign off on it if it weren't a good plan."<br/><br/>"Yeah," he says. He licks his fingers, but more out of habit than need - there's water to wash with now, and he isn't so starving that he'd try and eat the plate if he thought it'd fill him up. Carol wrinkles her nose at him, exaggerated disgust, and he feels himself grinning back at her. <br/><br/>"One day, we're going to work on those manners."<br/><br/>He wipes at his mouth with his arm, thinks about licking his arm just to gross her out, but doesn't. <br/><br/>"I don't know if we're going to be able to spare a lot of people today. For the run." <br/><br/>And that's the first thing that should have let Daryl know the day wasn't going to go like he wanted it to.</p><hr/><p>He rides the dirt bike over - he doesn't think he can stand it in the car with the others, all of them trying to buck him up, tell him it'll be okay. It might not be okay, and they're too close and so he rides out on the bike, in front, looking for anything that might be a problem, might get in their way. <br/><br/>It's a solid team. He'd have called it if it wasn't. There's only a few of them, but this is just a dry run anyway. 'Proof of concept,' Glenn had said. This was to see if it really was as empty in there as it looked. They don't need to empty the store or anything. And the people are good - Glenn, Sasha, Michonne. Zach is greener than the others but not by much. In the end, Bob comes too, which Daryl isn't sure enough - he doesn't know enough about Bob, he's a wild card, but he was a medic and Daryl thinks maybe that's a good thing. That if something goes wrong, Bob will be there and they can deal with it. <br/><br/>He doesn't know, but he should have, that Bob is the thing that goes wrong. <br/><br/>Zach and him park near the entrance of the store. Daryl knocks a window. Waits. <br/><br/>"I was thinking - if there's batteries, or a CD player or something, maybe we could bring it back for Beth."<br/><br/>Daryl looks at the older boy and scoffs. "What?"<br/><br/>"She ain't need other people's music," Daryl says. "She makes her own."<br/><br/>"I bet she'd like it though. Being able to listen to other people's songs. What, you don't think so?"<br/><br/>"Naw, I dunno. Prob'ly." He spits and grins at the boy. "Man, she's got you whupped."<br/><br/>"Whatever, man. Just because I don't have the whole prison eating out of the palm of my hand -"<br/><br/>"Stop," he mumbles. <br/><br/>"What? It's got to be normal for you. You better get used to it, Dixon. When you're president, you're gonna -"</p><p>"Stop," Daryl grunts, feels his ears burning as he listens with half an ear inside the store. If it were overrun, the walkers would be here already. </p><p>"What's this?" Michonne asks, a smile tugging at the side of her mouth. <br/><br/>"Oh, I've been trying to figure out what Daryl will do, you know. When he grows up."<br/><br/>"I am grown up," Daryl says. <br/><br/>"You know, first I was like, fireman, you know? Saving babies from trees -"<br/><br/>"Cats," Glenn throws in. "They save cats from trees."<br/><br/>"Oh, well, then that's probably not Daryl. He'd probably bring the cat back for us all to eat. Cat soup."<br/><br/>A little bit of laughter from the group. But it sounds - nice? Teasing is something he's still getting used to. Mostly from Carol he can take it, read it. From other people, it's harder to tell. Not from Zach though. He's nice, and he listens to Daryl all the time. He means it nice enough, Daryl knows. Even if it makes Daryl feel uncomfortable.<br/><br/>"So then I was like, taxidermist. You know, but then I thought, nah, Daryl wouldn't waste food like that, preserving it for sport -" </p><p>"Ain't how taxidermy works," Daryl adds. "What, you think they just throw shellac over the whole carcass, let it rot under there -"<br/><br/>"So then," Zach says, "I hit it. President."<br/><br/>"We don't have a president," Daryl says quickly, before any of the others can say it. "Council's doin' it's job, we won't -"<br/><br/>"Whose talking about the prison? I'm talking about America."<br/><br/>Daryl waits for the laughter to turn mean - like Daryl Dixon, fucking president? What America? Their world is constrained to Western Georgia. The idea of there being a united country again feels laughable. But the laughter stays light. Glenn claps him on the shoulder. <br/><br/>"President Dixon. Yeah, I could see that -"<br/><br/>And Daryl is saved from having to respond by the gentle thunk of a walker hitting the window.</p><hr/><p>It's dark and quiet inside and eerily like it was. Daryl is used to walking in to chaos - places ransacked, turned over, stuff grabbed in a rush, knocked over in a struggle. Not here. The shelves are full of everything, neatly labeled with prices, evenly spaced on the shelves. It's not an organized grab - everyone is just taking what they see, what strikes them. Daryl is mapping it out - the grocery section, all jars and shelf stable stuff, all of it untouched, toiletries - he sees Glenn sneaking some lady stuff for Maggie and he looks away. Batteries, flashlights, non-electronic goods. They've got the generator but they try not to use too much gas. There's extra generators here too, little ones, for home use, but still an amazing find. Daryl keeps mapping, Zach behind him with a cart, loading in things. <br/><br/>"Should bring back some samples, right?" he whispers. Even though they are alone in the store, it's the kind of place that feels like whispering. Zach's got his hand on his gun the whole time - he's watching Daryl's back so Daryl can focus on the layout. </p><p>It's going smooth, too smooth, is how Daryl thinks about it later. </p><p>There's a smash and a crash and Daryl tenses automatically, listens for the shuffle of feet, the groaning of walkers. He doesn't hear any of that, though, and he realizes he's already halfway to the place where he heard the crash. It's Bob - Bob trapped under a shelf, bottles smashed and rolling all around him. The smell of wine in the air makes Daryl feel a little sick, but he actually feels pretty good when he sees what the problem is. Something was always going to go wrong - something always does. If this is what goes wrong, this is nothing. <br/><br/>And it is nothing. Until a walker burst through the ceiling. </p><p>And another. And another. <br/><br/>And then it's not nothing at all. </p><hr/><p>He gets on his bike and tries not to stare at the bloody streaks on his hands, his knuckles. <br/><br/>He thought for a second they'd make it clear - he'd found everybody, sent them out, and he and Zach had gotten Bob loose. He'd had it, for a moment, it'd looked salvageable. <br/><br/>Then the walker had chomped down on Zach's leg, and even that - look at Hershel, there were options, there were - </p><p>And then the walker was tearing into Zach's throat and Zach was screaming and then the screaming stopped and they were gone. <br/><br/>Stupid. Fucking stupid. He'd seen the walkers on the roof but there hadn't seemed like that many, and he'd assumed - he hadn't factored in the winter, the damage, two years of nobody looking at the place, he should have known the roof was a weak spot, he should have - </p><p>And now they were going back with nothing, with even less than they'd left with because they'd lost Zach and it was all Daryl's fault. <br/><br/>Sasha'd cornered him by the bike before he can tear out. The others are scrambling into the car - he can see Glenn trying to catch his eye, Michonne, but he looks away. They're going to say it isn't his fault and it's going to be a lie and if they lie to him about this he'll scream and that'll just bring more walkers down and they'll lose more people and it'll all be his fault -</p><p>"Hey," Sasha says. Her eyes are dark brown and serious and he has a moment, a desperate moment, where he thinks she'll just haul off and hit him and he's relieved at the thought, that she knows he fucked up and she'll - </p><p>But all she does is say, "I okayed this mission personally. I did that. I looked over everything you had. Four times. Hershel looked over it more. None of us saw this coming."<br/><br/>He shakes his head. "I shoulda known - the roof -"<br/><br/>"If we hadn't made noise to draw them all to one section, the roof would have been fine. You weren't wrong about any of this. It's an accident."<br/><br/>"Wrong 'bout somethin' or we'd have Zach out here," he snarls, and she just shakes her head. <br/><br/>"Daryl. Sometimes - there's nothing you can do."<br/><br/>There's another shattering noise from the store, and Sasha looks at him. "We'll talk about this when we get back. Okay?"<br/><br/>And Daryl just hops on his bike, kicks it in gear. He's fucked up, he's so fucked up because he finds himself wishing, as he whizzes down the open roads of Georgia, that his dad would be there, or even Shane, back at the prison, waiting for him. <br/><br/>Waiting to have their version of a little talk. </p><hr/><p>He says he'll tell Beth. Glenn offers, and Sasha, but this was his mission. His idea. He needs to be the one to tell her. He'll go there first, he thinks. He'll tell her, before anything else. He wishes he'd been able to grab a CD player, batteries, something. Something to give her. But anything he gave her would be worth so much less than what she's lost, so he goes empty handed. Hovers at the door. </p><p>"Hey," she says, seeing him. Her cell is what he imagines the inside of her head looks like - sheets with little vines on them, bits of paper with song lyrics taped to the wall over the bed, a collage on one wall, little bits and pieces of color everywhere. But the cell is still dark and grey and it's still a cell. Even with all the other stuff. She's writing in a notebook and he wonders what - does she write her own songs? A journal? A story? Or lists, lists upon lists, because lists are what make the prison run, chore rosters and watch duties and supplies they need, all written down neatly. <br/><br/>"What is it?" she asks, and he wonders if she knows already. Knows the only reason Daryl'd show up would be for bad news. <br/><br/>"Zach," he says. And that turns out to be enough. <br/><br/>She stills, stops writing. "Is he dead?"<br/><br/>He can't even nod. It's his job to tell her but the words are getting twisted in his mouth and he's making her tell herself, and he hates himself. <br/><br/>"Okay," she says. And she goes over to that stupid board, 30 DAYS WITHOUT A WORKPLACE ACCIDENT. And she marks it down to 0. He watches and feels the lump in his stomach grow. That's on him. They'd gone thirty days with nothing, no losses. Until he came along with his stupid idea, that's - </p><p>"What?" Beth asks and he can't say anything, doesn't know how to explain, so he just shrugs and stares at the tile in her hand. 3. </p><p>"I don't cry anymore, Daryl," Beth says. She almost sounds a little mad. Like she's tired of everyone thinking about her as the weakling, the one who slit her wrist, the one who couldn't take it. But then Daryl wonders if he imagined it, because she's still talking and now she just sounds resigned. Maybe a little sad, or disappointed, but not angry. "I'm just glad I got to know him. You know?"<br/><br/><em>President Dixon, </em>Daryl thinks. He nods, and when his voice comes out, it's barely more than a whisper. "Me too."</p><p>"Are you okay?" Beth asks, and he wishes she'd punch him or something, or yell at him. It's his fault, doesn't she understand that? Is she that stupid, that she doesn't - but he's the stupid one, he's the one making her comfort him when he killed her own boyfriend, when he killed someone who was funny and smart and nice, when he -</p><p>He shakes his head. He can't think about it. He just shrugs, and his thumbnail finds it's way to his mouth. "Jus' - tired of losing people is all."<br/><br/>And then Beth is on him and he wonders if she is going to hit him - if she's going to yell I'm tired too, if she's going to - but she's hugging him and he freezes up. No one does this but Carol. He doesn't know what to do - can't tell if the hug is meant to be for him or for her. Maybe for both, he thinks, and so instead of snapping at her or pushing, instead of running away, he tries to hug her back. Tries. It's pathetic - a hand touching her elbow, carefully - but it's more than he's done for anyone else. <br/><br/>"I'm glad I didn't say goodbye," Beth adds. "I hate goodbyes."<br/><br/>"Me too," Daryl says, and he shifts. He won't push her away - he owes her this much, at least, he owes her whatever the fuck this is, the hug - but maybe she senses that he's nearing his limit because she pulls back. Nods. She doesn't smile at him, not really - but she gives him a look like, yeah, we're in it together, ain't we?</p><p>And with that Daryl has to get out of there. Because they aren't in it together, because Beth is good and kind and Daryl is a fuck up who isn't half as smart as he thinks he is and he thinks he's pretty fucking stupid. <br/><br/>He went to Beth first, like he told himself he would. Which means that when he leaves her, he goes out to find Carol.</p><hr/><p>She's in the library, finishing up story time. Or maybe she finished story time a long time ago, because the book is closed on the table, and instead of reading, she's holding Molly's hand and teaching her how to stab a pillow. <br/><br/>One of the little kids, the curly haired boy, is standing outside, and as Daryl tries to push past him, he starts to say something - maybe just "Hey, Mr. Daryl!" - but he doesn't let it slow him down and so he walks in before they have the chance to clean up. Carol looks nervous for a second, before she realizes it's him. He doesn't know if he's meant to be mad or something about this - doesn't know why Carol's doing it in secret, except for the way Rick gets now when he hears about kids with weapons - but it just makes Daryl feel relieved. Nothing lasts. Today showed that as good as anything. And when things broke, the kids needed to know how to take care of themselves. They all would. <br/><br/>"Think that's enough for today," Carol says, and she takes the knife out of Molly's hand. "Good work, Molly." Molly beams at her. Lizzie and Mika help gather everything up, and Jesse puts a bookmark in the book. "We'll do more tomorrow."<br/><br/>"Yes ma'am," Mika chirps cheerfully, and she takes her sisters hand and they scamper away. Molly and Luke behind them. Jesse lingers a second, shyly, and finally says "Bye, ma'am! Bye Mr. Daryl!" And then he too is gone, and they are alone in the library. <br/><br/>"I need a better system," Carol says. She's making sure all the knives found their way back into the trunk. He watches her fingers running over them and he closes his eyes. "Carl walked in on me earlier - only a matter of time before he tells Rick." She closes the trunk and turns to look at him. Her tone doesn't change, but he can feel her focus move entirely to him, razor sharp. <br/><br/>"Daryl?" He swallows, shakes his head. "What happened?" Her hand is on his elbow - the same place he'd touched Beth. She's guiding him to a chair. "Are you all right?"<br/><br/>"No," he says. And it all comes out. </p><p>Carol doesn't say anything. Her hand stays on his elbow. "Hey," she says finally. "Hey. Look at me."<br/><br/>He looks at her and he's dreading what she'll say - that it's all his fault. That it isn't. That he's a stupid fucking kid, that somebody needs to take him in line before he gets anyone else killed. That he's not allowed out anymore, that he can't be trusted. That she's sorry. <br/><br/>"You did everything you could have." Daryl shakes his head. <br/><br/>"Wasn't enough." It never is. First with his dad, then Sophia, he tries and he tries and it never goes right and then -</p><p>"But it's all you can do." He feels her fingers on his chin and he flinches in a way he hasn't for a long time. Scowls at himself, even angrier. It's Carol, you stupid fuck, it's Carol and - </p><p>But she just lifts his chin, gently, and makes him look at her. She moves his hair out of his eyes. Looks at him. <br/><br/>"It's all we can do," she says again.</p><p>And that's what finally breaks him. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Infected</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He's in his bunk that night, not sleeping, when he hears the noise. It's closer to morning than night - he can see the play of light on the wall outside his cell, on the other side of the bedsheet Carol fastened as his door. It paints the wall faintly pink and he watches it and he listens.</p><p>The cell blocks are full of noises - distant dripping, clanking, the scuff of feet on floors, the creak of people turning in beds, the murmurs of people speaking low or breathing or snoring. It used to drive Daryl crazy and sometimes it still does, but tonight it's something to concentrate on. He tries to isolate separate sounds - the whistle of Hershel's snores, or the little gurgles Judith lets out sometimes from Rick's cell. The squeal of springs that comes sometimes from Maggie and Glenn's cell, sometimes from others - people pair up quick now. Life's too short. There's coughing tonight, more than normal, - it's allergy season now, and Daryl wonders how many of the people in the prison are going to be sneezing all spring long. There'd been a whole aisle of allergy meds in the Big Spot. But it's mostly coming from the direction of D Block - maybe it's a cold. They'd had cold stuff too, and tissues. Not worth thinking about.</p><p>He hears Rick getting up with Judith, trying to rouse Carl. He hears Beth come - Beth, still dry eyed, taking Judith like it's a normal morning. </p><p>But then there's a different noise - one he hasn't heard inside the prison in a long time. </p><p>Gunshots.</p><hr/><p>He sleeps in his clothes so he's over there quick - there are kids running out, screaming, yelling, and he just charges past them, crossbow in hand. He falls in step with Sasha and Glenn. <br/><br/>"Lock the tombs!" Glenn yells, and tosses Daryl the keys. He does. They've drilled this a hundred times, a thousand. His grip doesn't waver, he doesn't fumble. <br/><br/>There's nothing happening in C - Judith is crying now, Beth holding her. Hershel crutches past him, swiftly - he didn't have time to put on his leg. Daryl tosses the keys to Beth.<br/><br/>"Lock yourselves in, then get your dad his leg," he calls out, and then he's with the others, Carol and Sasha and Tyreese and Glenn, everyone free, running towards D. Rick joins them, moving as quickly as he ever did. <br/><br/>"We locked the gates to the tombs, Hershel's on guard -"<br/><br/>"It's not a breach," Daryl says quickly, because it's not and they shouldn't waste time thinking about that. He tries not to think about what it means - someone died, someone died in the night in D and now there's probably a lot of people dead, or maybe -</p><p>But then they're in D and there's no time to think. <br/><br/>It's chaos - people scrambling everywhere, trying to get away, trying to find people, everyone still in their pajamas - he sees bloody footsteps, one guy trembling and aiming a gun at the doorway, like Daryl and them are the problem. Daryl grabs it out his hand. The man is sobbing, blood smeared over half his face. <br/><br/>"Daryl!" <br/><br/>He looks over at Rick - Rick, who has no gun. He throws the gun over and Rick catches it perfectly, like they've done a million times, like it hasn't been almost a year without practice. They fall into the rhythm quick - Rick ushering people down, checking for blood, for bites, almost throwing them out of the cell. Daryl starts to do that too, but he figures out that the people further back, they'll never make it to the cell door. It's an army of walkers, it feels like, too many. He sees that dumb curly haired kid from yesterday, the one who said "Hi, Mr. Daryl!" and he grabs him up right before a walker - Hassan Abeed, his brain thinks, from the Decatur group - takes a chomp out of him. <br/><br/>"Get in the cell," he yells - he sees Karen, face white, and he shoves Luke at her, pushes them both into the cell, slams at the door. He hears Carol behind him doing the same thing, following suit, sees her pushing Molly towards Karen, Karen opening the door just enough, sees Glenn slamming a walker in the head. Hears rather than sees the noise abating, or maybe just changing - he can hear the kids now, practically shrieking, can hear Karen going "It's okay, it's okay," can hear Tyreese calling for Karen, can hear the moans of hurt people. But the groans and snarls of walkers, the weirdly wet sounds of their feeding, feels almost gone. <br/><br/>"Are we clear down here?!" Rick is yelling, and Daryl takes a moment, looks around. <br/><br/>"Yeah!" Glenn is yelling.<br/><br/>"We're safe?"<br/><br/>No, Daryl thinks. Maybe for now, but no. <br/><br/>"Up here!" Glenn yells, and he makes his way up the steps. There's a lady - he doesn't remember her name but she works in the storeroom, she always says thank you whenever he drops shit off - she's laying in a heap at the top of the stairs, but otherwise it seems quiet. <br/><br/>Until something lunges out at Glenn and Daryl's heart is in his throat and he's raising the bow quick -</p><p>"Get down!" he yells, and Glenn does - there's a part of him, deep down, that always marvels when people listen to him like that, so quickly, so full of trust. He pegs the walker in the brain, no problem, and then that really is it. He goes to help Glenn up - Glenn brushing himself off, checking himself over - and Rick steps over too, the old Rick, the guy in charge, and it's such a relief that Daryl feels weirdly light. Like it's all going to be okay. <br/><br/>Until he looks down and sees Patrick, his face smeared with blood, his eyes open and fixed. </p><p>Daryl's arrow through his head.</p><hr/><p>There's an attempt to put together some kind of chronology - who died first, who was bitten and turned, who was bitten and didn't? No one noticed anything for too long - they should have watches inside as well as outside, they should lock themselves in at night, they should - but it all comes back to Patrick. He'd been feeling sick yesterday. His dad is one of the walkers who looks most gnawed on - intestines all spilling out. And then they find the walker still in his cell (Charlie's cell, who worked the fence, always a grin for Daryl), his face still a mess of blood, and Rick stabs him in the head quickly, surely. <br/><br/>"Someone musta shut him in," Daryl says, looking at the corpse on the floor. "Before he could - "<br/><br/>"No bites, no wounds," Rick says, and his composure is cracking a little. Daryl hears Hershel come up behind them, scoots a little out of the way. "I think he just died."<br/><br/>"Horribly, too," the new doctor says, which Daryl squints at - what's the point of saying that? Obviously it was horrible, he's dead - "Pleurisy aspiration."<br/><br/>"Choked to death on his own blood, caused those trails down his face," Hershel says, and Daryl shivers, which makes Hershel notice he's there. <br/><br/>"I've seen 'em before," Rick says urgently. "On a walker outside the fences."<br/><br/>"Saw 'em on Patrick too," Daryl adds. Tries not to think about Patrick yesterday, stars in his eyes. <em>I'd like to shake your hand. </em><br/><br/>Hershel's got a hand on his shoulder. "Back up," he says, and Daryl looks at him, confused, but he does. <br/><br/>"It's a sickness. From the walkers?"<br/><br/>No. Not from the walkers. <br/><br/>"How could somebody die in a day just from a cold?" Daryl asks, and he can hear his voice, higher than it normally is, feel the stirrings of something in his chest. The coughing last night, all the coughing - mostly from D Block, almost all from D, right, not in C, not -</p><p>"I had a sick pig, died quick."</p><p>"Pigs and birds, that's how these things spread in the past. We've got to do something about those hogs." <br/><br/>Kill them, Hershel means, and he sees Rick's face twitch, even though Rick was planning on killing them anyway. <br/><br/>"Daryl," Hershel says to him. "Go find Carol. All right?"<br/><br/>He looks at Hershel, unsure what he's done wrong, but he nods. </p><p>"I - a'right," he mumbles. Steps out of the cell, past Bob. <br/><br/>"No - wait," Dr. S says, and he looks at Hershel. Hershel runs a hand over his face, quickly, almost angry. <br/><br/>"Damn it," he mutters, and that's when Daryl knows it's bad, because he doesn't know if he's ever heard Hershel cuss. "Daryl, never - stay here, all right? But - out there. On the walkway."<br/><br/>"Kay," he says. He doesn't let them hear how confused he is. He finds himself about to bite his thumb, before he notices it's covered in blood. He tucks it away. Turns out to look down from the upper level. They're moving the bodies out, he sees. Sees Carol leading Mika and Lizzie by the hand, sees Luke and Molly coming out of Karen's cell, looking shaken. <br/><br/>"Maybe we're lucky," he hears Dr. S say from behind him. "Maybe these two cases are it."<br/><br/>"Haven't seen anybody be lucky in a long time," Bob says. <br/><br/>Yeah. Daryl hasn't either.</p><hr/><p>Hershel and he go straight to the council room. He thinks he's probably not meant to be in this meeting - this isn't one where the youth perspective is going to mean anything. But he heard what they said. How they've all been exposed. Everyone in D Block, anyone who went in to help. So Hershel keeps Daryl close. <br/><br/>Carol comes in with blood hastily wiped away and goes to him immediately. <br/><br/>"You all right?"<br/><br/>"Yeah," he says. He's cleaned off his hands but Hershel tells him not to touch his face, not to put anything near his mouth. In case the germs get in. Daryl doesn't have a great handle how sickness like that works. Is it in the air? Has he already breathed it in? In the water he washed his hands off with? Coating his arms, living in his clothes, crawling out from the blood he's already touched? He doesn't know. He tries not to touch his face. He tries not to breathe. "Was Patrick."<br/><br/>Carol looks stricken by that, but just for a second. She puts a hand on his shoulder - carefully, only touching clothes - and she squeezes. Turns to the rest, who have already settled down. <br/><br/>"Patrick was fine yesterday," Carol says firmly. <em>Think someone's got a little crush on you, </em>Daryl hears, and it makes him flinch. Carol looks over at him, then continues. "And he died overnight. Two people died that quick?"<br/><br/>No one says anything. There's nothing to say except yes, and no one wants to say it. Carol continues, practical. <br/><br/>"We'll have to separate everyone whose been exposed."<br/><br/>"That's everyone in that cell block. That's all of us. Maybe more." Glenn says. Daryl knows he's not supposed to be here but he looks at them. The council. Their faces pinched with worry, serious. But it makes him feel better to see them. They'll solve it. Somehow. They'll sort it. Sure they can't see this enemy, not like walkers, not like the Governor's men, but they beat back all of those. They'll beat this now. </p><p>Somehow. </p><p>They'll do what they can, at least. Daryl knows that. And maybe this time, it'll be enough.</p><p>"We don't know how easily it spreads," Hershel says firmly. "Is anyone else showing symptoms that we know of?"<br/><br/>Daryl thinks of the coughing from last night. Echoing through the prison. Who knows where it started? Whose it was? <br/><br/>"We can't just wait and see. There's children," Carol says, and Daryl looks down at his hands so he doesn't have to know if she looks at him when she says it. "It isn't just the illness. People die and they become a threat." Patrick, the arrow sticking out of his head. </p><p>"We need a place for them to go," Hershel says, and it makes Daryl shiver to think about. A place to put sick people until they die. Or get better. But what if everyone gets better except for one person? What if one person dies and it means the rest of them do too? He remembers hearing about quarantine in school, remembers thinking it sounded easy. Why wouldn't you just close off the sick people? But he feels the danger in it now. To close them in with the dead and dying, even if they aren't showing symptoms - Daryl bites at his thumbnail and stops at a look from Hershel. Right. Keep his hands away from his face. </p><p>"We could use cell block A?" Carol asks, but Daryl's not sure what the question is. They could use A. There's no reason not to. Except...</p><p>"Death row?" Glenn asks. He shakes his head. "Not sure that's much of an upgrade."<br/><br/>"S'clean," Daryl points out, thinking of the pools of blood in D, of Patrick's body and all the others. "That's an upgrade." But then he remembers he probably shouldn't talk and he shuts up again. <br/><br/>It sounds like they will use A, but then Daryl hears a worse sound. </p><p>Someone outside is coughing. </p><hr/><p>It's Karen. Daryl hangs back - knows he's not supposed to be in the meeting anyway. Digs his thumb into the skin at his wrist to stop him from biting it and thinks. Karen touched Luke this morning, and Molly. She was probably touching Tyreese right now. Did it pass by touch? Hershel said touch would be bad, but better than some. "Better than airborne," he'd said. "Better than droplets." He tries to think about the last time he touched anybody that wasn't Carol. Beth, last night. But he hadn't been in D then. <br/><br/>But he'd shook Patrick's hand. His stomach twists. What if Patrick had given it to him in the handshake, and he'd given it to Beth in last nights hug, and Beth gave it to Judith? He thinks of Judith's chubby cheeks covered in blood and digs into his wrist harder with his thumbnail. No. No. It hit fast, Hershel said. If he had it yesterday, if he'd given it to them then, he'd know by now. <br/><br/>Wouldn't he?<br/><br/>"Don't panic," he hears Hershel say from the hallway. "We're going to figure this out."<br/><br/>Too late, Daryl thinks. </p><p>"David," he hears Karen say. "From the Decatur group. He's been coughing too."<br/><br/>They're too late.</p><hr/><p>The council all splits to separate jobs. They don't give Daryl one, but he's always been good at giving himself things to do. He doesn't just go off - he doesn't want to expose anybody else. Or anybody at all - he probably hasn't exposed anyone. Probably. They'll know soon enough, anyway. It hits fast. </p><p>He goes up to Hershel who is sitting at the council table, head in hands. He hears Daryl coming, looks up. "Daryl. How are you feeling?"<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. "Fine. Ain't got a sore throat or nothin'." His stomach feels weird, tangled and tight, but that's probably just nerves. Probably. "I kin - bury the dead ones. If you want."<br/><br/>Hershel looks drawn and serious. "You don't have to do that, Daryl. Someone else - "<br/><br/>"Everyone else's got jobs to do," Daryl says. He grips his thumbs inside his hands, to stop himself from biting them. "Or they ain't been exposed yet. I already have. I can do it."<br/><br/>Hershel looks at him a long time. <br/><br/>"Y'said burying's something that's gotta be done quick," Daryl adds. </p><p>"It'll be taken care of," Hershel says finally. He gives Daryl a look. "Why don't you go find Carol or Glenn and help them set up A Block? Or the tombs?"<br/><br/>Carol is waiting outside the council room when he leaves, and he slows down. <br/><br/>"You a'right?" he asks, and Carol looks so tired. She just sighs. <br/><br/>"I'm worried. About Lizzie and Mika. They were around Patrick." She looks at him. "You all were."<br/><br/>"You too," Daryl points out, but then he regrets it. The thought that Carol might get sick makes him feel even more tangled inside, and he pushes it away. <br/><br/>"Ryan - their dad, you know - he died in D," Carol says. Daryl leans up against the wall, feels the cool clamminess of the prison wall against his hands. <br/><br/>"Sick?"<br/><br/>"No, no. He got bit." She's quiet for a moment. "He - asked me to look after them." <br/><br/>Daryl nods. This feels obvious to him - if he had kids that needed looking after, he'd give them to Carol. Kind of hard on Carol, he guesses, but she's the best for the job. He thinks about Sophia suddenly - arms and legs akimbo in a huge sleeping bag, staring in awe at the stars. <br/><br/>"He asked me to look after them this morning and they might be sick by tonight," Carol says bitterly, and Daryl leans his head against the cool wall and closes his eyes. <br/><br/>"They prob'ly ain't," he says uncertainly. "They - I mean, you said. We were all around Patrick." He remembers the touch of the other boy's hand in his, the look on his face, like Daryl was a hero or something instead of some gangly kid who was good at killing shit. He swallows. "An' he got sick fast. If they were gonna - they'd prob'ly be sick a'ready."<br/><br/>Carol just nods. She looks sideways at him. "Daryl," she says. "If anything happens to me -"<br/><br/>"It ain't gonna," he says quickly. "Y'ain't seen Patrick for a day practically -"<br/><br/>"Daryl," Carol says firmly, and he looks at her. "If anything happens to me - look out for Lizzie and Mika. Okay?"<br/><br/>He just looks at her. Then nods, once. Lizzie and Mika aren't like Sophia. But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that means he'll be able to keep them safe. <br/><br/>Maybe. <br/><br/>"You don't feel sick though. Right?" Daryl's stomach feels like snakes when he thinks about Carol, Carol's eyes bulging, Carol's face running with blood - but she just shakes her head and his stomach settles, a little.<br/><br/>"No. No, I feel all right. What about you?"<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs, and he flinches a little as Carol's hand presses against his forehead. It's soft and cool. <br/><br/>"I ain't - I feel okay," he mumbles. "Jus' - nervous, I guess."</p><p>"Are you sure? You're all right?"<br/><br/>He chews on his lip, then nods. "Yeah. Gotta be."<br/><br/>"Yeah." Carol keeps her hand on his forehead a moment longer than necessary. Then lets him go. "Why don't you go help out Glenn getting the rooms ready?"<br/><br/>"Yeah," he says. "A'right."<br/><br/>"Daryl?"<br/><br/>He turns around. Carol is still leaning against the wall. She looks at him. <br/><br/>"We've got to do all we can do. Right?"<br/><br/>"Right," he says. And he goes to help Glenn set up rooms for Karen and David. </p><p>He feels her eyes watching him the whole way down the hall.</p><hr/><p>He doesn't find Glenn right away. He runs into Rick first. <br/><br/>Rick's the one taking over burying the bodies. He's got a bandana wrapped around his face like he's playing cops and robbers, and he's loading the bodies onto one of the rolling gurneys from the infirmary. He looks over and holds out an arm. <br/><br/>"Stay back, Daryl - we don't want you -"<br/><br/>"I've already been near Patrick," he says, but he takes a few steps back to appease Rick. <br/><br/>"You did good in there," Rick says softly. It's the most Rick has said about fighting to Daryl since the battle with the Governor. Something warm settles in Daryl's stomach. <br/><br/>"You too," he says, and he feels himself flush. Stupid. What a stupid thing to say. "I mean - it was good you were there."<br/><br/>"Weren't much use without my gun," Rick says bitterly, and Daryl squints at him. <br/><br/>"Naw. You were." He'd got all those people out, he'd caught the gun Daryl'd given him, he'd had their backs. Daryl had worried about the farmer thing - Rick was meant to be a protector, but how could he protect them when he was preoccupied with tomatoes and corn? But today proved at least that Rick would always be there for them. When they needed it. Whatever that looked like. "We wouldn't be here without you." He doesn't know if he should specify always or just today, so he doesn't. Let it mean more than one thing. Rick had earned it.<br/><br/>"It was all of us," Rick says. <br/><br/>"Naw," Daryl says. He thinks about Rick, Rick in that stupid too big shirt, Rick looking him in the eyes and saying, <em>I can't leave you here by yourself</em>. Rick saying, <em>I'd be proud to claim you</em>. "It was you first."<br/><br/>"Thank you, Daryl," Rick says quietly. He lays a hand on Daryl's shoulder, gently, and Daryl doesn't flinch. "I - that means a lot. I've - I've screwed up a lot, almost - lost everything." He sees Rick swallow, knows he's thinking about Carl. "But it means a lot that you - think that of me. It does."<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs uncomfortably. "Dunno," he says. Finds himself running his thumb over the seam of his jeans, over and over. "Jus' - when the shit hits the fan? You're there with the shovel. We all - know that." He squints, looks away. </p><p>He's interrupted by Maggie, yelling - there's build up, on the fence. For a second he hesitates - he told Hershel he'd stay away from other people - but either he hangs back and the wall breaks and they all die, or he goes forward and the fence holds but he gets people sick. There's no good answer but one of those deaths is less sure than the other so he goes forward, grabbing one of the spears they keep near the wall. He tries to keep Rick between him and the others, because they've both been exposed, but there's Sasha, who was in the block along with them, and Westin, who lives in D. He feels a moment of despair - how are they going to possibly be able to isolate everybody whose been exposed? How can they keep this from spreading? - but he pushes it away and just focuses on walkers. Taking down one, then another, then another. <br/><br/>It's easier to fight them, physical and real in front of him, then to spend time worrying about how to fight a ghost. </p><hr/><p>Sasha's the one who finds them - rats, bloody, half chewed, like an open invitation. He thinks about when he was a kid and Merle left a sandwich under his bed for a week and a line of ants came in through the window, a direct trail. His dad had tarred Merle for it, but Merle thought it was kind of cool. "They found that san'wich through a whole house," he says. "That means they're pretty fuckin' smart." <br/><br/>The walkers aren't smart but they don't have to be. They smell blood and they come. </p><p>They're pushing against the wall so hard that some of them are literally crumbling to pieces. Daryl doesn't let himself notices, focuses on bracing the wall, on stabbing at walkers. But eventually it becomes clear that the fence is gonna give. <br/><br/>"Daryl," Rick says, and Daryl looks over immediately. Rick looks pained, and Daryl's not sure why. "Get the truck."<br/><br/>Daryl doesn't hesitate. He knows where the keys are and he knows how to drive - he'd be getting his permit already, if the world had been different. The others are all braced against the fence, pushing, shoving walkers back. He nods and takes off running. He hears someone behind him asking the question, hears Rick answer "I know what to do." He doesn't need to say anything else, he doesn't need to explain. Daryl runs.</p><p>He helps Rick load up the pigs. Bites his lip. "Maybe you should drive," he mumbles. He's good, but Rick is going to ride along the trailer hitched at the back, over a bumpy field, hopefully with a hoard of walkers chasing them. One weird turn, Rick could go flying. But Rick shakes his head. <br/><br/>"I can handle it. You just drive. The long way. All right?"<br/><br/>Daryl nods. And drives. <br/><br/>He hears the pigs squealing behind him. <br/><br/>He hears the walkers shuffling after them. <br/><br/>He can hear Rick, slicing each pig, then yelling "Go, go!"</p><p>And Daryl does go. Daryl drives. </p><p>And they pull the walkers further and further away. </p><hr/><p>When they get back, Rick doesn't seem to want to talk, and that's fine by Daryl. He parks the truck and he wipes down the trailer - spattered with little bits of piggy blood and entrails - and he puts the keys back in their spot. He takes his time. He should go help Glenn, like Hershel told him to, even though by now Karen and David are probably all settled in. He should go back inside. But he takes his time, cleaning up, because if Hershel makes them all go into isolation, this will be the last time he's outside for a while. <br/><br/>Carl is walking up to the prison from the yard, and he sees the boy cradling his gun in his two hands, like something precious. Well, good. Maybe now, Carl and he can be friends again, real friends. Maybe things are about to get better. <br/><br/>He can smell the woodsmoke as Rick sets the remains of the pig pen alight, and Daryl stands and watches it a second before he goes inside. It reminds him of Atlanta, camping near the quarry, the winter on the road. He inhales the smell of dry wood and flame and smoke but there's something else there too - something close to the smell of bacon burning. But they just killed the pigs, they just - </p><p>Rick's fire isn't the only one that's burning. <br/><br/>And Karen and David are no longer settled in.<br/><br/></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A weird time to write a plague storyline - although I guess all of Walking Dead is a plague storyline...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Isolation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tyreese is so mad, mad enough to yell at Rick, to shove Carol, and that's when Daryl gets involved, even though Tyreese is like four times bigger than him and almost panting with anger. <br/><br/>He'd gone up the hill because he'd heard yelling and he'd smelled - he'd seen smoke. Something was happening. He went as quietly as he could - he remembers what Hershel said, about keeping distance, about not exposing anyone else. So maybe that's why Carol and Rick don't notice him when he arrives. Or maybe it's because of Tyreese.<br/><br/>"You find out who did this and you bring 'em to me, you hear? You bring them to me!"<br/><br/>Carol takes a step forward, one hand out. Touches Tyreese's arm. "We'll find out who -"<br/><br/>But Tyreese yanks his arm back and Carol just steps back. Her eyes on Tyreese. They flick to the smoldering piles that are all that remains of David and Karen, then flick up again.</p><p>"I know what you're feeling," Rick is saying, low and slow, like he talks to the horse, like he used to talk to the pigs. "I've been there, you saw me there." That is what Tyreese looks like, Daryl realizes. He looks like Rick did when he went to the tombs and cleared it of walkers. But it wasn't walkers who did this, it was people, or a person, and when Tyreese finds out who -</p><p>"Karen didn't deserve this!" Tyreese yells. "David didn't deserve this! Nobody does!"<br/><br/>And he moves forward toward Rick and Carol, fists clenched and Carol, Carol who doesn't jump at anything anymore, Carol who is always cool and calm, Carol who can hold her own, Carol flinches. And that's when Daryl gets involved. <br/><br/>"Man, don't -" Daryl starts, and he braces himself, because Tyreese is so angry and if he touches him, brings his attention on himself, he's going to end up in a world of hurt. But he's already done it and Tyreese moves quicker than Daryl would have thought he could, for a big guy, and Daryl is pinned up against the opposite wall, Tyreese's hand fisted in the collar of his shirt. <br/><br/>"Man, I ain't going nowhere till I find out who did this!"<br/><br/>"Tyreese!" Carol yells, and Daryl feels the bars on the wall against his back, rounded, solid. Tries to breath, to let Tyreese just get it out, because once he hits something he'll probably feel better, he'll probably - "Get off of him!"<br/><br/>And Carol is coming and he tries to hold up his hands, to say no, to say it's okay, he's got it. But his hand is shaking when he holds it up and the hands are too near his throat, like Shane at the CDC, like a chokehold, like - </p><p>"Tyreese!" Carol yells again. <br/><br/>"I - we're on the same side," Daryl chokes out, and suddenly Tyreese seems to realize who he is, what he's done. His hands loosen around Daryl's shirt and Daryl could probably pull away, if he needed to. Then Carol has grabbed his arm and has pulled him away. Has her hands on both his shoulders and he can feel her behind him, her hands moving over his back, his shoulders, like she's checking him over. <br/><br/>"Look," Rick is saying, even slower and softer. "I know what you're going through. We've all lost someone." Daryl thinks this is a stupid way to approach Tyreese, because they haven't all had someone they loved deliberately killed and then set on fire, but Rick doesn't seem to get that distinction and he keeps going. Tyreese is facing the wall, shoulders heaving, and Rick inches forward. "You've got to calm down -"</p><p>And Rick touches Tyreese which Daryl could have said was a bad idea, and then Tyreese is going for Rick. Carol and he step forward almost as one person, arms spread out, trying to keep them apart - Daryl ducks his head down, tries to protect his face, one hit from Tyreese and he might - </p><p>"Stop!" Carol is yelling, "Stop! That's enough!"<br/><br/>But it's not enough. Tyreese gets in one good shot, two, and then it's like a switch is flipped or something. Rick goes off like Daryl hasn't seen for a while - not since the days when they'd first lost Lori. He's whaling on Tyreese, fighting dirty, and it makes something in Daryl's skin crawl. He looks, Daryl realizes after a moment, like Will Dixon. </p><p>Maybe that's what makes Daryl throw himself back into the mix. Rick isn't Will. He's nothing like Will. Seeing him like that - </p><p>It's just wrong.</p><p>He slings his hands over Rick's shoulders, tries to get him off, but it's like Rick doesn't even see him, doesn't even know -</p><p>"No!" Carol is yelling, and she's right next to Daryl then, shoving Tyreese and Rick apart. "Rick, stop! Stop! It's Daryl!"<br/><br/>Then Rick is standing there, panting. His hand looks all fucked up, covered in blood, and Tyreese is laying on his back, crying, face slick with tears and blood. <br/><br/>And Daryl doesn't know what will happen next.</p><hr/><p>He spends the rest of the day as Carol's shadow. <br/><br/>"Are you all right?" Carol asks, once Rick is off to Hershel and Tyreese storms out the field where the graves are kept. She's got one hand on the back of his neck which is probably meant to be nice but just feels too close. His neck stings some from Tyreese, but the man hadn't actually hurt him bad, not on purpose. He was fine. <br/><br/>"Yeah," he says. He looks at her. "You?"<br/><br/>"Yeah," she says softly. "Yeah, I'm fine."<br/><br/>Daryl nods. Looks at her. He hadn't seen her flinch like that in a long time. He bites his lip. <br/><br/>"Sorry," he says, and Carol shakes her head. <br/><br/>"You didn't do anything. I shouldn't have let him get his hands on you."<br/><br/>"Din't do nothin'," Daryl murmurs. "M'fine."<br/><br/>"Still. I didn't think he'd - go for you like that. I'm sorry."<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. He's not some kid. He's maybe not big enough to win a fight with Tyreese, but he can hold his own. He's fine. <br/><br/>"Come on," she says to him. "Let's go check on C."<br/><br/>He pulls back. "I ain't - Hershel said. I mighta been - exposed." He pulls further back - he shouldn't even be touching Carol. The thought of making Carol sick makes him feel worse than Tyreese's hands around his neck. "You ain't s'posed to -"<br/><br/>"You're not going to get sick, Daryl, all right?" Carol says quickly. "Karen and David are - it's terrible what's happened, but they were the only people showing symptoms. You're going to be all right. Understand me?"<br/><br/>Daryl chews at his lip. Nods. </p><p>But stays six feet back. Just in case.<br/><br/>Carol opens her mouth to say something else, but she's interrupted by coughing. For a moment she stares at Daryl, her face totally white, but it didn't come from him. Behind her Luke, the little curly haired kid Karen had been holding during the attack on the cell block, is coughing into his hand, hard. He can't seem to stop. His mother is kneeling next to him, rubbing his back in a worried way, before she too starts coughing. <br/><br/>Carol watches them like she can see the virus spreading into the air, going out into the world, too tiny to catch, too minute to stop, drifting it's way into everyone's faces, everyone's lungs. She takes a step towards Daryl and he counters her, moves backwards. <br/><br/>"Don't," he says. <br/><br/>The coughing subsides. But then it starts again. </p><p>From a different direction this time. <br/><br/>It's spread.</p><hr/><p>They've lost fifteen people in the last two days - Zach, the attack on the cell block after Patrick died, whatever happened in the tombs with David and Karen. There's at least that many feeling sick - everyone from D, Sasha, Dr. S. Daryl finds himself breathing deeper, like he's testing himself to see if he's going to start coughing. He hasn't started yet.<br/><br/>Cell Block A is isolation. It normally looms empty at the eastern side of the prison - they cleared it over the winter but it's even less cheerful than C and D, which says something. They're putting the most vulnerable in the admin block - kids. The elderly. There's not many of either, but enough that they'll fit in the admin building with room to spare. <br/><br/>Hershel tries to talk him into going to the admin building, but he won't. "You said, I'm exposed," Daryl says. "Can't put me in there with them. Put me in A."<br/><br/>Hershel hesitates. "If you haven't shown symptoms yet, chances are you're all right," Hershel says finally. "We put you in A..."<br/><br/>They put him in A, he won't be. But he thinks about Judith, about Beth, about Molly and Mika and Lizzie and Jesse, about Carl. They're just kids. He's got to protect them. <br/><br/>Carl's pissed again. He's in C, packing. He shoots a look at Daryl. <br/><br/>"They aren't making you go into quarantine. Are they?"<br/><br/>Daryl shakes his head. "I've already been exposed," he says. Finds himself tugging at his nail. "It ain't safe."<br/><br/>Carl rolls his eyes. "Right." He shoves some more stuff into his bag, then looks at a photo. Stops. "How come he trusts you more than me?"<br/><br/>"He don't," Daryl says right away. He says it so fast that he doesn't even think about it until after he's said it. Does Rick trust him more than Carl? <br/><br/>No. He thinks about the way Rick looks at Carl, the care, the fear. Rick is scared that something is going to happen to Carl, to his body, to his mind. He's worried about Daryl too, but not like that. If he was worried like that, then he'd never have let Carol send Daryl outside, have never let Daryl run the mission to the Big Spot. Rick thinks the world outside is poison and he's doing everything he can to keep Carl safe from it. Because he's Carl's father, and he loves him. Rick might care about Daryl - Daryl's mind skirts around the idea, something he can't fasten onto, can't examine closely in case looking at it too much proves he was wrong, that there isn't any care there at all. Rick might care about him. But he isn't Rick's son. That's Carl. That's always only been Carl. <br/><br/>"Yeah, right. That's how come you're allowed to go outside and hunt and -"<br/><br/>"Carol let me do that. Your dad din't want to let her."<br/><br/>Carl looks up at him at that. "He thinks I'm fucked up." Carl's voice has deepened over the past year, but not much. It just makes him sound strained all the time, like he's on the verge of tears. "Because of that guy." <br/><br/>Carl doesn't say more about the guy, and Daryl doesn't either. <br/><br/>"He thinks the world's fucked up," Daryl says. "It ain't you."<br/><br/>"The world is fucked up. But it's not going anywhere, is it? He can't keep me in here and make me - I'm not going to stay here and forget what I need to know to survive out there."<br/><br/>"You ain't gonna forget," Daryl says. "You can't."<br/><br/>Carl looks at him then, and nods. "Yeah. We can't." <br/><br/>He takes a moment and then he's looking at the framed picture in his hands. Daryl's seen it a bunch of times - the frame, not the picture. Carl's never shown him the picture, and Daryl's never asked. <br/><br/>"He trusts you, man. He din't trust you, he wouldn't let you near Judith, any a the other kids. He trusts you for that."<br/><br/>Carl just shrugs. Keeps looking at the picture. Daryl hears footsteps behind him - the thud of Rick's battered boots on concrete, as familiar at this point as the beating of his own heart. He clears out. He doesn't want to stoke the fire anymore than he already has.</p><hr/><p>Michonne is going to run a mission to Peachtree. To the vet college. The Council had talked about it before, but it'd always been considered too far. Too big of a risk. But now the risk is acceptable so Michonne is going. <br/><br/>Daryl asks Hershel if he can go - it solves the problem of where to put him, and he could do some good, instead of sitting here with his thumb up his ass, going out of his skin with worry. He and Michonne work well together - they'd done some tracking after the Governor went off, tried to find him, they hadn't found him but Michonne was easy to work with. He could do some good with her. But Hershel says no. <br/><br/>"You get in a car with them?" he says, looking at Daryl seriously. "If you are infected, in that close of a space? It's not safe. And we're running low on able bodies here. Not a good idea."<br/><br/>Daryl hates it but he knows it makes sense. So he tries to help them get sent off instead - refills the oil in the car, arranges the gas cans in the back. It's Michonne and Bob and they look so few going off. It ain't enough. <br/><br/>So when he sees Tyreese, he asks him. <br/><br/>"You goin' on the run?" His eye is swollen almost shut and his other eye is almost two wide, jittering around, not able to stop on any one thing. Like an animal constantly scanning for predators. He looks at Daryl like he doesn't recognize him. Then all of a sudden, he does. <br/><br/>"Going to A Block. Someone's got to keep watch." Daryl bites his thumbnail. <br/><br/>"I could do it. If you want."<br/><br/>"No," Tyreese says angrily, and Daryl feels himself tighten up, just in case. Something softens around Tyreese's eyes. "Sorry," he says stiffly. "About earlier."<br/><br/>"Whatever," Daryl says. He scuffs his boot against the ground. "Ain't nobody gettin' in or outta there without a whole bunch of people seeing 'em. They'll be okay."<br/><br/>"Sasha is in there," Tyreese bites off. "I ain't going nowhere."<br/><br/>Daryl scuffs his foot harder, doesn't look at Tyreese's face. "They'll die, man." Daryl's not exactly sure who he's talking about - about Bob and Michonne? About the people in A block, drowning in their own blood without medicine? "They're gonna get them meds. We need 'em. For everybody. Sasha too."<br/><br/>Tyreese doesn't break. He shakes his head. Stares through the glass through to A Block. The faint sounds of coughs, of labored breathing. <br/><br/>"They need you, man," Daryl says. Tyreese still doesn't move. "They won't let me go. They need somebody else, watch their back, or no way they'll get back -" Tyreese turns around quick and Daryl is against the wall like lightning. <br/><br/>But Tyreese doesn't go for him. He doesn't even look at him. He just walks out of the cell block. <br/><br/>Hopefully towards where Michonne and Bob are gassing up. </p><hr/><p>He stays near A Block. The hallway outside - but near enough to the door that he'll know who goes in and out. Tyreese didn't exactly say that he wanted Daryl to stand watch, but Daryl said he would so he does. He's there when Carol comes with a line of sick people, half her face covered with a bandana. <br/><br/>"Where's your mask?" she asks Daryl as the line of people shuffle obediently into the building. "You should cover your face."<br/><br/>Daryl digs around in his pocket, pulls out his own bandana. It's a muddy red and it might be covered in actual mud - Daryl can't remember when last he washed it. He can see Carol's eyes, half exasperated, half laughing, over the top of her mask. <br/><br/>"Here. Take my extra. Around your nose and mouth all the time, all right? And don't hang around here."<br/><br/>"Told Tyreese I'd keep watch."<br/><br/>Carol's eyes study him over her bandana. "There's no need for that. No one is going to get in there. And it's not safe."<br/><br/>"Told him I would though. If he'd go on the run for the meds. So."<br/><br/>Carol looks like she's about to say more, when a small voice says, "Carol?"<br/><br/>It's one of the blonde girls - the older one. Lizzie, he thinks. Her name is Lizzie. Her hair is slightly tousled and her face gleams with sweat. <br/><br/>Oh, no. She was a kid - she was in the admin block, with Carl and Judith, with Beth, she - Daryl finds himself staring at her smudged little face, the way it shines in the light. <br/><br/>Oh, no. <br/><br/>"I don't feel good," the girl says, and she coughs. Into her elbow. Hershel had given a whole talk - vampire coughs, gotta pull up your cape, cover your nose. Daryl's eyes fixate on her elbow as she pulls it away from her mouth. He's half expecting a dark splotch of blood, but it's clear. <br/><br/>"Get your mask on now," Carol says to him, and he fumbles with her bandana, ties it around his face. It smells like her, soap and books and laundry detergent. "It's okay," she says to Lizzie, and Daryl is struck by how calm she sounds. "Don't worry." The girl is crying into Carol's chest, and Daryl is staring. He wants to grab the kid, pull her away - she's sick and she's touching Carol, crying into her, spit and snot and - "Hey, don't worry. We're gonna get you better. You just go in there and lie down." Her voice is so calm, so gentle. He thinks of Sophia in a flash and for a moment he hates Lizzie. That voice belongs to Sophia. This kid hasn't earned it. But then that thought is gone equally quick and he feels guilty. The kid's an orphan and she's dying and he's acting jealous for a little girl whose been dead almost two years. Stupid. <br/><br/>"Will you tuck me in?" Lizzie asks and Daryl feels worse. She's just a little kid and she's scared. She's earned whatever voice Carol wants to give her. <br/><br/>For a moment he thinks Carol is going to say yes and he'll have to stop her. He won't let her go in there. It's bad enough that Lizzie already touched her all over, smeared bodily fluids on her, breathed on her - he's not letting Carol go in there with all the others and -<br/><br/>But Carol just says, "You know my friend Glenn?" And Daryl's stomach clenches even tighter than it was. He didn't know Glenn was sick. "He's the best tucker I know and he'll make sure that you feel toasty and warm. Okay?"<br/><br/>The girl clings to Carol. Carol doesn't let her linger. "It's okay, it's okay," she says softly. "It's all right. Go find Glenn."<br/><br/>And then she closes the girl in, the door to death row clanging shut behind her. <br/><br/>Carol turns away and is far from the door as soon as she can. She's clawing at her mask, like it's too tight, like she can't breathe, but then she sees Daryl and she stops. <br/><br/>"Don't take that mask off ever, you hear me?" she says. She sounds fierce and on the edge of tears. "Not ever!"<br/><br/>"I won't," he says. "I -"<br/><br/>"Don't hang around here. Someone else can stand watch."</p><p>"I - I told Tyreese I'd -"<br/><br/>"I don't care what you told Tyreese. I'm telling you, you can't stay near here. It's not safe." Carol's eyes are wide and watering and she blinks, hard, three times. "Daryl."<br/><br/>"I - I won't stand watch," Daryl says quietly. He hasn't seen Carol like this for a long time. Remembers her, practically a puddle on the side of the road, those blue eyes staring accusingly at Rick. <em>How could you just leave her? </em>"Carol, I - "<br/><br/>"Just - I'm going to go get water. For -"<br/><br/>"I'll do it - " Daryl says immediately, but she shakes her head.<br/><br/>"Stay clear of all this. All right?"<br/><br/>"I - but I can help -"<br/><br/>"Staying safe is how you can help. Please." <br/><br/>He nods, once, jerkily. It feels terrible to do nothing, to sit and wait and watch while everyone gets sick. But it feels worse to watch Carol like this, like she's going to come apart. He nods again. <br/><br/>"Good. Good." <br/><br/>She reaches out like she's going to touch him, her hand halfway to his hair, before she stops. Pulls her hand back. <br/><br/>"Be careful," she says. And then she's off. </p><hr/><p>He can't go to A Block. He can't go to C - even though most of the people that were sick have been moved to A, it still feels weird to go and mingle with other people. What if he's exposed? What if they are? He can't go to the admin building with the little kids. He thinks about his secret spot, the shot out guard tower - but that would feel like running. He's not going to run. <br/><br/>So he parks himself on the outside of the admin building. There's an open window, and he can hear the kids inside - what sounds like a herd of them running around in circles, Beth's harried voice going "All right now, maybe that's enough - careful!" He can't hear Judith, which he thinks is probably a good sign. He leans his head back against the wall. He's so tired all of a sudden, and the building is warm against his back, baking all day in the sun. He closes his eyes. He's not sure if he falls asleep or not. Everything feels fuzzy and unreal, and he keeps hearing Carol in his head, over and over. <em>Staying safe is how you can help. How could you leave her out there alone? My daughter's still out there! You deserve better.</em> It runs in his head on a loop, over and over and over again until his head is pounding. He rubs at his face.<br/><br/>"Daryl?"<br/><br/>It's Carl. He's wearing his hat again, and he has his gun strapped to his side. He's got a bucket in one hand. <br/><br/>"Why ain't you in quarantine?" Daryl asks. His brain feels slow from too long in the sun. <br/><br/>"Hershel wanted to go out, get some plant for the sick people. I went with him. For protection."<br/><br/>Daryl nods. It makes his head pound harder. He rubs at it again. <br/><br/>"Michonne and them went off, find the meds," he mumbles. "Could be back by tomorrow."<br/><br/>"Yeah. Hope so." Carl pushes his hat back on his head. <br/><br/>"Y'look good in that hat."<br/><br/>"Yeah?" Carl messes with it again, grins. "I mean - it's not a farmer hat."<br/><br/>"Naw. S'a cowboy hat."<br/><br/>"Shut up."<br/><br/>He can hear Carl smiling at him but he can't smile back - his head is pounding and he stops rubbing at it and pushes his hands against his forehead instead. It doesn't help. <br/><br/>"Daryl? Are you okay?"<br/><br/>"Tired," he says. Carl takes a step closer. Daryl waves out an arm. The movement makes his whole body shiver, and suddenly he's freezing, even in the sun, even with the warm brick at his back. He's so cold. <br/><br/>"S-stay back," he hears himself stammer out. "D-don't -" </p><p>"Daryl? Look at me. Are you -"<br/><br/>And then Daryl doesn't hear anymore. </p><p>She only asked him one thing. Stay safe.</p><p>And he couldn't even do that. </p><hr/><p>His head is pounding and the world feels blurry. He can hear them talking about him and he wants to tell them to stop, that he's right here, that he can hear - </p><p>" - just fell over, said not to get close, said -"<br/><br/>"Daryl? Wake up."</p><p>"He was fine he was talking he was -"<br/><br/>"Rick don't touch -"<br/><br/>"Daddy, stop, you can't -"<br/><br/>"I'm going in there anyway, I might as well take -"<br/><br/>"He's too big, Daddy, you'll drop him - Daddy, stop, he's sick!"<br/><br/>"You go in there, you touch him, you're going to get sick, we can wait -"<br/><br/>"Listen, damn it!" It's Hershel then, Daryl can tell, and he shivers harder because Hershel sounds mad, so mad, mad like his dad and he's meant to be up already, Merle said he'd drive him to school but Merle forgot and now Hershel is mad - "You step outside, you risk your life. You take a drink of water, you risk your life. And nowadays you breathe, and you risk your life. Every moment now you don't have a choice. The only thing you can choose is what you're risking it for."</p><p>Suddenly someone is lifting him and he pushes weakly against them. He's too big for this, he can walk, he's got to run because Merle isn't here and Hershel is mad and -</p><p>But the arms are warm and strong underneath him and he feels the arms deposit him almost gently onto something cold and hard underneath him and then he's flying, flying so fast, except he's on wheels, riding the wind and then the sun is gone and it's dark and clammy and he's inside and maybe he'll be okay, maybe Hershel isn't mad at him, maybe, maybe - </p><p>But then he's gone again.</p><hr/><p>When he wakes up he's sweaty all over and there's a little girl holding a cup staring at him. <br/><br/>"Mr. Hershel said to give you this when you woke up." It's Lizzie. She pushes the cup at him. Daryl squints at it. It doesn't look like anything he's ever seen before.<br/><br/>"He's helping Dr. S now. It's for drinking," she says, like he's too stupid to know what he's meant to do with a cup. He takes it from her. It takes him two tries - he misses the first time. <br/><br/>"I know it's for drinkin'," Daryl grumbles, and he takes a sip. He doesn't spit it out right away - he's had worse things. But it's close. <br/><br/>"My dad says that the worse medicine tastes, the better it is for you," Lizzie says. Then her face falls a little. "He said, anyway."<br/><br/>Daryl takes another sip. "Be feelin' better in no time," he says, and Lizzie gives him a little smile.<br/><br/>"Mr. Hershel said he'd be back to check on you when he finishes his rounds."<br/><br/>"Wait - he's in here?" Hershel isn't meant to be in here. He's meant to be in quarantine - </p><p>"Yeah. He's helping out until Dr. S feels better." He can't tell if she understands that Dr. S probably won't feel better. "Are you good at tucking people in?"<br/><br/>Daryl looks at her like she's the one having weird dreams. Tucking in? He doesn't know that he's ever been tucked in in his life. "Why?"<br/><br/>"Mr. Glenn tucked me in first, but he just did it kinda -" She makes her hands into two stiff little shovels and pokes them rapidly in and out. "Like a robot or something, you know? And then Dr. S said he'd come around, but he had to take a nap first. And it's not like I want to take a nap or anything - I'm not tired. But - I dunno. I just thought I'd check."<br/><br/>She looks so small. Her arms are poking out of her sleeves like little sticks. "Bet Sasha's good at it."<br/><br/>That makes Lizzie droop again. "She doesn't feel good. We shouldn't bother her." She looks at him expectantly. <br/><br/>"I ain't - never tucked nobody in before." He guesses he knows the theory? Maybe?<br/><br/>"Oh." She gets up, is about to leave. <br/><br/>"I mean, I could -" What the fuck does this kid want from him? "I could try or whatever, just. Don't expect nothin' great or anythin'."<br/><br/>She nods very seriously. "It's okay. Even if you're as bad as Mr. Glenn, I won't tell. It can be a practice one."<br/><br/>Daryl nods. He gets up to follow her and the room spins for a second. He feels her little hand - hot and sweaty - slip into his. <br/><br/>"I'm just next door," she says conspiratorially. She leads him over. It's dank and dismal. She goes over to the bed, sits on it. Kicks off her shoes, takes off her little vest and hangs it on the side of the bed. "First you just - I get under the covers first, I guess." She does, wriggling like a little worm. He thinks of Sophia. <em>Mama, I think that was actually two constellations. </em>Lizzie looks at him expectantly. <br/><br/>"Then what?" he asks roughly. He steps forward. <br/><br/>"You just - tuck the blankets, I guess." She demonstrates a little and the ruins her own work by wriggling. "You're just - it's meant to be cozy." <br/><br/>It looks confining to Daryl, too tight, but he ain't a kid. He does what she asks. He can feel the heat around his hands and can't tell if it's coming from her or from him or from everywhere. <br/><br/>"Not bad," she says consideringly. "Pretty great actually. For your first time and all."<br/><br/>Daryl grunts. He gets up and turns to go. <br/><br/>"Mr. Daryl?"<br/><br/>Daryl turns around. "S'just Daryl," he says. He's starting to feel hot everywhere now. He should go back to his cell. Finish that gross tea. He's sick. He got sick. <br/><br/>"Daryl. Are we gonna - die here?"<br/><br/>"Naw," he says. He can't think of anything else to say. <br/><br/>She nods. "Okay. You don't have to be scared."<br/><br/>He's pretty sure he's meant to be saying that to her.<br/><br/>"We won't die here. Promise. Even if - something happens - we won't die. Not like my dad. We won't."<br/><br/>He nods. Doesn't know what to say that isn't a terrible lie or a terrible truth. Says nothing. <br/><br/>"Thanks, Mr. - I mean. Thanks, Daryl."<br/><br/>He nods again. And finds his way back to his own bed.</p><hr/><p>When he wakes up again, Hershel is there, looking at his empty tea cup. <br/><br/>"Here, Daryl. Have a little more of this." Hershel holds the cup to his mouth but Daryl takes it with his own hand. It takes two tries again. "You look a little better than earlier. You remember coming in here?"<br/><br/>His shivers. Merle forgot to drive him, his dad was - but no. He was sick. It was A Block. <br/><br/>He realizes he doesn't have his mask. Hershel doesn't either. "Where's my mask?" Daryl asks. His voice sounds almost shrill in the cell. <br/><br/>"What's that?" Hershel's hand is on Daryl's forehead, icy, and Daryl shrinks back from it. <br/><br/>"I - I didn't take it off. I promised I wouldn't. She's gonna be mad." He doesn't know where it went. When Lizzie was there earlier he didn't have it, the first time he drank the tea, but - had Lizzie taken it? Because Carol gave it to him? He shivers again. <br/><br/>"Woah there now, son. It's all right. What - your bandana?"<br/><br/>"S'not mine," Daryl says. "I didn't take it off. Tell her I didn't take it off, okay?"</p><p>"I'll tell her, Daryl. It's all right. Calm down."<br/><br/>Hershel's hand is heavy on his forehead, so cold it burns, and he twists a little to get away from it. "She's gonna be really mad," he feels himself saying. It almost sounds like he's crying, but he can't be. He wouldn't do that, not over something as dumb as this. "She's gonna be so mad -"<br/><br/>"Who, Daryl? It's all right. You don't need the mask in here, it's all right. I'll tell her."<br/><br/>She only gave him one rule and he didn't follow it. she's gonna be so mad, madder than his dad, mad -<br/><br/>"Don't wanna go," he blurts out, and his hands are clutching Hershel's. "Hershel, please, don't let them take me, 'm sorry -"</p><p>"His fever is up again," he hears Hershel say, and he cranes his neck around. Whose? Glenn's? Dr. S? Lizzie's? No, Lizzie's a girl, not her fever, his -<br/><br/>"Merle," he says, and he's not sure what he's trying to tell Merle. To tell Merle off for stealing his mask, for forgetting to drive him to school, for enlisting in the army the second he could and leaving Daryl alone, for -</p><p>"Shh, Daryl. It's all right. It's Hershel. You're all right."<br/><br/>"Hershel?" he asks. He feels Hershel's hand on his forehead again. "Hershel, I don' wanna burn up, don' let me -"<br/><br/>"You're not going to burn up. You're all right, Daryl. You're just a little sick, that's all, but we're going to take good care of you -"<br/><br/>"She burned up," Daryl whimpers. All ashes in the top of his dad's closet. "Sorry."</p><p>"It's all right, son. You're all right."<br/><br/>His dad is there somewhere. His dad is there and is going to take him away, is going to give him to the Governor, his dad and Shane are going to take him to the barn and whup his ass, his -<br/><br/>"Hershel?" he says, and his voice is high and too quiet in his own ears, like waves are crashing over and over, pulling on the sand, roaring. "Tell her I'm -"<br/><br/>But then the waves crash over his head and he doesn't hear anything more. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Indifference and Internment</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's cold when Daryl wakes up and there's someone standing over him. <br/><br/>He flinches back - they're too close, they're gonna - but it's Glenn, Glenn with red rimmed eyes and slicked back hair, Glenn perched on the edge of his bed, a cup of tea in his hands. <br/><br/>"Don' want anymore tea," Daryl croaks, and Glenn laughs - a breathy thing that turns into a cough. <br/><br/>"This is mine. Get your own," Glenn responds when he stops coughing. "Your fever's down again."<br/><br/>"Feel weird," Daryl mumbles, and Glenn grins at him weakly. <br/><br/>"You are weird."<br/><br/>Daryl shoves at Glenn half-heartedly but he misses. It takes him two tries. When he makes contact, the heat is radiating from Glenn like a furnace. <br/><br/>"Carol's here," Glenn says, and the room spins. <br/><br/>"She - she sick?"<br/><br/>"No, no. No, she's fine," Glenn says quickly. "They're - she's going on a run, with Rick. She just came to say bye before she goes. You feel up to talking to her?"<br/><br/>"She can't come in," Daryl says. The room has slowed but his chest feels too tight, like he'd been running or something. "She'll -"<br/><br/>"She'll talk through the window. She's talking to Lizzie now."<br/><br/>Daryl nods.<br/><br/>"Think you can get there? Only if you're up to it. If you're resting -"<br/><br/>"Naw," Daryl rasps, and he's already pushing up off the bed. "Naw, 'm good. Let's go."<br/><br/>It takes longer than it should to get to the visiting room. Glenn helps him, but they're both weak - they have to stop a bunch of times, for either Daryl to catch his breath or Glenn. By the time they get there both of them are drenched in sweat. <br/><br/>"Hold up a second," Glenn says. He pulls a bandana out of his pocket and wipes Daryl's face. "Make you presentable." The wipes feel gentle. He remembers Carol wetting a cloth and wiping his face, his arms, after his dad died. He closes his eyes. "There. Very handsome."<br/><br/>"Shut up," Daryl mumbles. He opens his eyes and Glenn looks terrible. Fever bright eyes, a sheen of sweat. If he looks like that, Carol will - </p><p>But the other alternative is not to see her at all. And what if it's the last time?<br/><br/>"I'm just - afraid," he hears Lizzie saying. Glenn puts a hand out, like saying 'wait.' Daryl waits.</p><p>"You can't be," Carol says back, and Daryl closes his eyes and listens.<br/><br/>"How?"  <br/><br/>"You fight it and fight it," Carol says. "You don't give up." Daryl won't give up. If Carol doesn't give up, after Ed, after Sophia, after everything, then Daryl's not going to let some fucking flu take him down. "And then one day, you just - change. We all change."</p><p>Carol thinks she changed from a mouse to a warrior, from a coward into somebody brave, but Daryl knows she didn't. She was always this way. The only thing that changed is it was allowed to come out.</p><p>He hears sniffling, the thump of a hand on glass. After a moment, Glenn coughs. Daryl's not sure if it's on purpose, to let them know they were here, or because Glenn couldn't hold it anymore. <br/><br/>"All right now," Carol says. "Go back and rest. I'll check in with you when I get back."<br/><br/>"Promise?" Lizzie asks, her voice a fragile thread going from herself to Carol. <br/><br/>"I promise," Carol says. "Go tell Daryl to come out."<br/><br/>"Yes ma'am," Lizzie says, and she comes out, her shirt tucked behind her knife. She looks better than she did earlier - yesterday? How long has he been sick? She looks at Daryl. "She wants you."<br/><br/>Daryl just nods. Takes a moment. And steps out. <br/><br/>Carol is standing there, and she doesn't look mad. But maybe she doesn't know yet that he lost her bandana. <br/><br/>"Hey there, pookie. How you feeling?"<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. "M'okay."<br/><br/>"I came yesterday, when I heard, but you - you weren't up for visitors." Her mouth twists to one side. "I'm so sorry, Daryl."<br/><br/>"Din't do nothin'," he rasps. Doesn't she understand, he's the one who fucked up? "I din't take off the mask."<br/><br/>"Yeah, kiddo. I know."<br/><br/>"I - I don't know where it went, but I didn't take it off, 'm sorry -"<br/><br/>"It's okay." The words are like cool water brushing over his forehead. "It's okay, Daryl. I know."<br/><br/>"M'sorry I got sick, I din't -"<br/><br/>"You didn't do anything wrong."<br/><br/>He nods. <br/><br/>"I'm sorry, Daryl. I tried - I should have stopped this."<br/><br/>He shrugs again. It makes him feel wrung out, a little, dizzy. "Can't stop it. S'just what happens." Things go wrong and people die, it's the way life is, the way it's always been -<br/><br/>"Michonne and the others will be back soon. You've just got to hold out until they come back."<br/><br/>"Why're you goin' on a run?" he asks. Because they wouldn't go, wouldn't leave everybody sick, if there wasn't a good reason, a reason like Michonne and Tyreese and Bob aren't coming back, a reason like -</p><p>"Just to stock up on food. See if we can find any medicine to hold us over until Michonne and them get back with the good stuff." He nods and the room whirls around him. <br/><br/>"You rest, okay? Don't be scared."<br/><br/>"I ain't," he croaks. And he isn't. Carol isn't mad at him, and she's going to go find meds. They'll be okay. Carol will fix it, her and Rick, they won't let them -</p><p>"I can't see the stars," he says, and he's not sure why he says it. His voice is shaking when he does and the room is still whirling gently around him. Oh no. "Can't find the Big Dipper."<br/><br/>Carol closes her eyes. Then opens them and looks at him. "You cant see the stars in here, sweetheart. That's why. You'll see them when you come out."<br/><br/>"Sorry," he says. "I can't find it." The stars, the bandana, Sophia's trail, he can't find any of it and Carol is going to be mad, Carol's going to hate him -</p><p>But she just holds up a hand to the glass. Waits until he presses his own hand to it. The glass is cool and solid under his hand, and it makes the room slow down a little. <br/><br/>"I'll help you find it," she says firmly. "When I get back. I promise."<br/><br/>Daryl nods. Finds himself pushing his head against the glass - it's so cool against his forehead. He can almost feel Carol's fingers carding through his sweat slicked hair. <br/><br/>"You're comin' back, right?" he asks, his voice as fragile as Lizzie's was. He hates himself, he's not some stupid kid, he's not -<br/><br/>"I'm coming back. I promise."<br/><br/>He nods, weakly. His forehead drags a little on the glass. <br/><br/>"Glenn's going to get you back to bed now. Maybe tuck you in."<br/><br/>"M'not a kid," Daryl mumbles, and he feels Glenn come over, sling an arm around his chest. "Sides, Glenn sucks at it."<br/><br/>"Slander," he hears Glenn say from next to him, but he's too tired to look. "Lizzie says -"<br/><br/>"Said you're like a robot," Daryl mumbles. "Ain't nobody wanna get tucked in by a robot."<br/><br/>"Maybe I'm a robot specially built to tuck people in." <br/><br/>Daryl scoffs at this and Glenn lets out a little laugh, but then they're both coughing. It takes a long time for them to stop, and when they do, Glenn has blood streaked across one cheek. Glenn is looking at him like Daryl is something terrible, and Daryl wonders where his blood is.<br/><br/>"I'll give Glenn a lesson," he hears Carol say from behind him, behind the glass, a million miles away. He makes sure to stay facing away from her - doesn't want her to see him, or Glenn, see them spattered with their own blood. "When I get back. I promise."<br/><br/>"Deal," Glenn says. <br/><br/>And Carol's promise rings in his ears as Glenn and Daryl stagger their way back to their cells.</p><hr/><p>When he wakes up next, Hershel is there and Daryl feels better.</p><p>"Tea time," Hershel says, and Daryl groans. <br/><br/>"Well, I know you're feeling better, if you can waste energy complaining," Hershel says as Daryl pulls himself up. He presses a soft hand to Daryl's forehead. "Your temperature is down."<br/><br/>"Always goes back up," Daryl mumbles, and he takes the cup and drinks it. It tastes weirder than it did earlier. <br/><br/>"Elderberries," Hershel says as Daryl chokes it down. "And willow bark. It's nature's aspirin."<br/><br/>"Tastes like horse piss." <br/><br/>"As a veterinarian, I can assure you that isn't true." Daryl squints at him - he's joking, right? - and Hershel presses a battered stethoscope to his chest, under his shirt. He shivers - the metal is cool and smooth after spending so long tangled in his own sweaty clothes. "Lungs sound okay. You young people - your immune systems fight harder than us old timers. Lizzie and Luke are rallying too. Amazing. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You're fighters, all of you." <br/><br/>Daryl's a fighter. He doesn't know how to do anything but fight. He looks at Hershel, his snow white hair in it's neat ponytail, his full beard. He wrinkled hands, his old man suspenders. "Why ain't you wearin' a mask?" Daryl asks, grimacing through another gulp of tea. <br/><br/>"No purpose to it. If I've been exposed, I've been exposed. Besides," Hershel says, smiling at him. "Nice to see a friendly face."<br/><br/>It makes Daryl's throat get thick and he busies himself with swallowing the dregs of the tea. He ain't some pussy bitch, getting teary over someone smiling at him. Merle would laugh him out of the building. His dad - <br/><br/>"If you're feeling well enough, you can come on rounds with me. But if I send you to bed, you have to go. That's the deal. Glenn, Sasha, Caleb, they all agreed to them. Will you?"<br/><br/>"Yeah," Daryl says, because even getting sent to bed like a kid is better than having to lay here doing nothing, staring at the walls as they warp and change and drift around him, listening to coughing and sputtering and dying, doing nothing. <br/><br/>Helping Hershel is a lot of babysitting the kettle and delivering tea, until they intubate Henry. He watches as Hershel and Glenn leave the cell, go check on Mr. Jacobson - <em>Marshall,</em> he remembers, his name is Marshall. Was Marshall. They load him up and cover him and Daryl watches from the corner of the cell block, next to the kettle. Two parts elderberry, one part willow bark. Let steep. <br/><br/>"Go get my copy of Tom Sawyer from my room," Hershel is saying, and Daryl realizes Lizzie is there, looking at Mr. Jacobson's sheet draped corpse. "I want you to read it by tonight. We all got jobs to do. That one's yours." Lizzie coughs, but Daryl's heard enough coughing by now to know it's surface level. Not settled deep in her lungs, not like Mr. Jacobson or Henry. </p><p>Or Glenn.</p><p>"I won't finish it," Lizzie says. She's looking at Mr. Jacobson with an unreadable look in her eyes. "It'll get too dark."<br/><br/>It's already too dark. <br/><br/>"Well, give it your best try," Hershel says, taking her hand. "And drink some tea. Daryl's just finishing a new batch, go get some fresh, all right?"<br/><br/>Lizzie wrinkles her nose but turns towards Daryl, and Hershel shoots him a look over Lizzie's head. He doesn't need to be able to understand the look to know what he should do. <br/><br/>He told Carol he'd look after Lizzie and Mika. If anything happened. <br/><br/>"Y'gonna get Tom Sawyer?" he asks, as he doles her out a cup. <br/><br/>"It doesn't matter."<br/><br/>"Hershel'll quiz you," he says. She isn't drinking the tea so he sighs and pours himself a cup. Takes a sip. She follows him. <br/><br/>"I'll be gone before he can."<br/><br/>Daryl looks at her. "Naw. Hershel said. We're healin' faster'n the grown ups. We're gon' be fine."<br/><br/>"No we won't. None of us will."<br/><br/>He scoffs. "Carol'd be pissed, hear you talkin' like that."<br/><br/>"I know. She thinks I'm weak."<br/><br/>Lizzie is weak, her fragile arms, her flyaway hair, the weird look in her eye. Daryl shrugs. "So prove her wrong."<br/><br/>"She doesn't understand. Nobody does." Lizzie blinks slowly. "Mr. Jacobson's going to come back."<br/><br/>Daryl looks at the kettle. "Yeah, when he's better. They just took 'im to a quieter place -"<br/><br/>"No. He's already better." She's looking at Daryl intently, little blue eyes fixed upon him, focus written all over her narrow face. "He'll come back. Unless they hurt him."<br/><br/>"Ain't gonna hurt him," Daryl grunts. "Hershel ain't never hurt nobody in his whole life."</p><p>"Everybody hurts people." <br/><br/>Daryl's not sure he disagrees, but he says again. "Hershel's good. He's gon' help Mr. Jacobson." Marshall. "He's gon' be okay."<br/><br/>"Maybe it'd be more helpful if we didn't have to fight anymore."<br/><br/>"Hey, quit it." His voice is rough. "We gotta fight. Always. We're fighters, Hershel said. All of us. We ain't going nowhere without a fight."<br/><br/>Lizzie looks pityingly at him. "It hurts to fight. You can see it." Someone coughs behind her, long and wet and racking. </p><p>"Everything's a fight."<br/><br/>"Exactly." Lizzie is on the edge of her chair, searching his face, a light in her eyes. "Exactly!" But whatever she's looking for, she doesn't find. <br/> She slumps back, disappointed, looks into her cup. "You don't get it either." <br/><br/>He doesn't. They finish their tea in silence. <br/><br/>"Y'better get that book," Daryl says. <br/><br/>"Yeah. Whatever." She doesn't seem like she's sassing him, but she's definitely deflated. He wonders if her fever is going up again, if he should check her forehead. But he doesn't even know what he's meant to be feeling for and his own body tingles still with unnatural warmth and cold. <br/><br/>"Y'can come read it here if you want," he offers. "Help me with the tea."<br/><br/>"Okay. Maybe." She gets up. Leaves her teacup there. "Thanks for the tea."<br/><br/>"Thank Hershel," he says awkwardly. "S'his fault."<br/><br/>She smiles at him, small, and disappears into the darkness.</p><hr/><p>He's taking his turn pumping air into Henry's lungs when Glenn comes to him. <br/><br/>"Oh. I was gonna -" Glenn is shining all over with sweat, his shirt damp with it. "I was going to relieve Sasha."<br/><br/>"She's restin'. I got it." Five seconds, squeeze. He looks at Glenn. "You should go rest."<br/><br/>Glenn shakes his head. "I'm okay." He sits down next to Daryl, sits heavily, like if he hadn't sat he'd have fallen. Five seconds. Squeeze. "You should go rest. Drink some tea."<br/><br/>"I drink anymore a that shit I'll fuckin' drown," Daryl says, and Glenn grins weakly at him. <br/><br/>"Well clearly it's working, if you have the energy to swear." Glenn pinches his fingers, pushes them against his forehead. "You're looking a lot better."<br/><br/>"Yeah, well. The tea."<br/><br/>"No, I mean - just yesterday, you were - pretty bad. You were - saying things, and -"<br/><br/>Five seconds. Squeeze. Daryl counts in his head, watches Henry's face, so he doesn't have to look at Glenn. "I - Carol loves you, Daryl. You know that right?"<br/><br/>Five seconds. Squeeze. "She ain't gotta love me," he mumbles, eyes fixed on the plastic of the pump as it slowly reinflates. "Ain't her kid."<br/><br/>"She doesn't have to love you, she just does. You don't have to be - scared or -"<br/><br/>"I ain't scared of Carol," he fires back. Five seconds. Squeeze. <br/><br/>"I know you're not. That's not what I mean. I just mean you - Carol's never going to stop caring about you. You don't have to worry about that."<br/><br/>What had he said when he was out? Five seconds. Squeeze. "Don't matter she cares about me or not. M'not some fuckin' kid. Don't need nobody carin' about me. Kin do it myself." <br/><br/>"We all care about you, Daryl."<br/><br/>Five seconds. Squeeze. "You got 'nough energy to talk my fuckin' ear off, whyn't you take the fuckin' bag?" he snarls, but he keeps his hands steady. Waits for Glenn to take the pump from him. <br/><br/>"I - Daryl. Come on, it's nothing to be - "<br/><br/>"I gotta piss," Daryl mumbles. "All that fuckin' tea. Take the bag or I'll have to let rip right here." Glenn doesn't move. "Take it a'ready!"<br/><br/>"All right," Glenn says calmly. Daryl sees his hands move next to Daryl's, glistening in the light, tanner than Daryl's even with all the time Daryl spends outside. He's up the second he sees Glenn take over, halfway out the cell door. <br/><br/>"Daryl? It's all right. It's -"<br/><br/>"Fuck off," he snarls, and he goes back to his cell.</p><hr/><p>He feels bad later - bad because he yelled at Glenn but also bad like his fever is up again. It goes up at night, Hershel said, and Daryl wonders if that means another day has passed. Time moves weird in here, endless and then gone, each moment stretching and contracting with some rhythm he can't hear. </p><p>He does hear the clang of his door sliding shut, and he opens his eyes. <br/><br/>"Shane, please, I din't do nothin' - " he mutters. Shane locked him up, Shane had said he was born to get locked up and now he was and his dad -</p><p>"It's Hershel," he hears from the door to his cell. "It's not locked. We're just closing everyone's doors in case."<br/><br/>Daryl's heart stutters. "M'that sick?"<br/><br/>"No, no. We're closing everyone's so that people don't worry." Hershel gets really close to the bars. "You're doing just fine, Daryl. The fever is your bodies way of fighting. Drink your tea." </p><p>"M'sorry," he mumbles, and he can't remember anymore what he's apologizing for. <br/><br/>"It's all right, Daryl. It's all fine. You're okay."</p><p>Then there's a thud and a jerking from the corner of his eye and Hershel disappears from his cell door.<br/><br/>"Everyone, get back in your cells. Go on, get back in your cells." He hears the spring and lurch of the gurney. Someone else died. <br/><br/>Daryl just hopes it won't be him next. </p><p>"Daryl?" <br/><br/>He turns his head. Expects to see Lizzie. But it's Sophia. <br/><br/>She looks like she did the night after the CDC, when they slept on the road. Layered up, two pairs of pants, socks on her hands and feet, that weird lumpy sweater. Daryl wonders how she can stand it - it's so hot in the cell block, he can feel his hair dripping wet. <br/><br/>"Your ma ain't here," he croaks. "She's on a run."<br/><br/>"I know. I'm here for you." She perches delicately, like a bird, on the end of Daryl's bed. <br/><br/>"I looked for you," Daryl says. He thinks he can feel her weight, dipping the mattress down. "I looked an' looked."<br/><br/>"I know. I looked for you too." <br/><br/>He flinches. "M'sorry."<br/><br/>"Lie down. You're sick."<br/><br/>"No, no, I'm - I'm sorry." He fumbles out for her hand, reaches for her, but he can't find her fingers. "If I'd a found you, your ma -"<br/><br/>"It's okay," she says simply. "You tried."<br/><br/>He can't sit up anymore and he lies back. He can feel her, tracing up and down his arms, like with a cold cloth. <br/><br/>"My mama always does this when I'm sick."<br/><br/>"I - yeah. She told me. I'm - "<br/><br/>"Shush. Let me wipe it away."<br/><br/>It makes him shiver, the there/not there feeling, like a cool breeze brushing over him. Is this him being sick? Or almost dead? Is she a ghost, or a hallucination? Or is she really here? All the questions mix in his head and tangle, and he realizes they don't matter. <br/><br/>"You're taking good care of her."<br/><br/>Daryl shakes his head. "Ain't. Din't find you -"<br/><br/>"It's my job to take care of her," Sophia says. He feels the coolness swirl around his head. "It's always been my job. My daddy -" She pauses, and the air warms a little before dipping colder again. "She took real good care of me."<br/><br/>"I know," Daryl says. And he does. Some people would think Carol didn't give a shit about her kid, staying with Ed, letting Sophia see - but people don't get it, and he thinks of his mama. His mama hadn't left his dad, but she also sure hadn't ever stopped him when he was in a rage. She escaped however she could, her cigarettes and her wine, solitaire at the table, days in bed. She'd never taken Daryl or Merle with her on those escapes. Not on the final one, either. Carol'd done everything for Sophia. Everything she could. Everything you can has to be enough sometimes. It's all they've got.<br/><br/>"I couldn't take as good care of her," Sophia says sadly, and it's hard to swallow. "My daddy - "<br/><br/>"I know," Daryl says, because he does and it's enough, she doesn't have to talk about it, not after -</p><p>"You take good care of her too."<br/><br/>"Ain't done enough," he says. "Din't find you, got sick, din't -"<br/><br/>"It's everything you can do. It has to be enough sometimes."<br/><br/>The bed dips more under his weight and then she's laying next to him - her body radiating coolness, peace. He's never had anybody lay this close to him before. Her head nestles perfectly under his arm. She's so small. She's looking up. <br/><br/>"Can you see it?" she asks. He squints up at the ceiling. <br/><br/>The ceiling is made of stars. <br/><br/>"Can you see it?" she asks again, and he shakes his head weakly. Feels her fingers close around his wrist, point. <br/><br/>"It's the North Star. There. See?"<br/><br/>And he does, suddenly, it's blazing with light, directly over him. <br/><br/>"And you follow it down -"<br/><br/>And there's the Big Dipper, just there. He's been looking and looking for it, and he finally found it. <br/><br/>"That's two constellations," he says, and he feels Sophia's head on his arm, her hair brushing at him. <br/><br/>"Yeah. You're lucky."<br/><br/>"Lucky," Daryl says. And then he wakes up.</p><hr/><p>When he wakes up he feels better than he's felt in a long time. Which of course means it's time for everything else to go to shit. </p><p>"Hershel!" he hears someone yell, and he's out of bed before he knows what's happening. Sophia, she's here, she's - but then there's another, "Hershel!" Lizzie, his brain supplies. It's Lizzie. <br/><br/>Then he hears low snarls, growls, and he knows it's not just Lizzie. <br/><br/>The cell door is closed and he hears Hershel from the lower level, yelling "Stay in your cells!" Which reminds him that he can open the cell door and so he opens it right away. Hershel is on the floor below and he's running towards the stairs until he sees Lizzie, standing there, her face frightened. Tom Sawyer gripped loosely in one hand. <br/><br/>"Daryl," she says, and there's a gunshot from below. Daryl doesn't know where to look. "Daryl, back up."<br/><br/>And then she's walking backwards, one hand beckoning forward. "Just follow me, Henry. Down here. Away from Glenn. Come on."<br/><br/>He can see Glenn's hand - tan, dotted with sweat and a smear of blood - sprawled on the floor out of the cell. And he can see Henry. He takes two steps back, to the back of the empty cell next to Glenn's. Stays very still. His knife he has, but he still feels weak and shaky, especially after his sprint from his cell, and Henry's a head taller than him, he'd have to -<br/><br/>He doesn't know what to do. Protect Lizzie, Carol had said, but Glenn - </p><p>"Go help Glenn," Lizzie whispers as she passes him. "Come on, Henry. Nice Henry. Here we go, this way..."<br/><br/>And she keeps walking. <br/><br/>He waits as long as he can, which is barely thirty seconds, before he creeps out of the cell as silently as he can. And then he's next to Glenn, kneeling, Glenn's face slack and blood smeared over one side of his face, dotting the floor. He moves Glenn to sitting - remembers Merle, drunk, have to turn him over so if he pukes he doesn't choke on it - figures the same is true for blood, figures - </p><p>But then there's shrieking from the hallway and stupid, he's so stupid, let a little girl coax a walker, like that wasn't going to go wrong - <br/><br/>Hershel limps past him, almost skipping in a way that if it weren't so serious would be funny. He's got Henry by the shoulders, is trying to lift him, and Daryl comes in from behind and helps and together, like popping a clam out of the shell, they flip the walker over the railing and into the grating in the middle of the block. <br/><br/>"You okay?" Hershel is asking, hands on Lizzie's cheeks, and she's nodding but her lip is trembling. <br/><br/>"I - I called him nice, he didn't scratch Glenn. I thought, maybe he listens -"<br/><br/>"Lizzie, where is Glenn?" Hershel asks, and Daryl answers. <br/><br/>"His cell. Hershel, quick, he ain't -"</p><p>And Hershel is off again, hobbling as fast as he can. He steps on his copy of Tom Sawyer in his haste. "Daryl, get Lizzie somewhere safe, then come help me."<br/><br/>Daryl grabs Lizzie's wrist, and she sniffles as he drags her. "He listened, Daryl," she says to him, and he barely hears her. He finds Luke's cell - Luke looking with frightened eyes under his mop of curly hair, the checkers board in his cell forgotten. "He listened, they can listen, they can -"<br/><br/>"Stay here," Daryl says, and he pulls the door closed. "Don't come out again for nothin', a'right?"<br/><br/>And then he hears banging, slamming from the front of the cell block. <br/><br/>"Dad! Dad, open this door - let me in! Dad!"<br/><br/>It's Maggie, and she's slamming at the door with an axe - like that'll work, death row bested by a fucking axe - and his boots skid on the floor as he changes direction, runs towards Maggie. <br/><br/>"Daryl! Let me in, let me -"<br/><br/>But he's already gotten the door open and she's inside, axe aloft, eyes wild. "What happened? What was the gunshot?"<br/><br/>Daryl had never seen what caused the gunshot, but he can guess. "Someone - they're turning," he says. "Glenn -"<br/><br/>The look on her face is terrible and he shakes his head, "No, no, not him, he's upstairs, he's -"<br/><br/>And then they're running and Maggie is shooting and there's gunshots coming from upstairs too and he hears an echo, far off, like the gunshots are coming from outside too, and by the time he's upstairs Hershel is kneeling next to Glenn, his face pale. <br/><br/>"I - I din't know what to do, I moved him up, so he wouldn't - did I hurt him?" Daryl's asking, as he watches Glenn cough out a mouthful of blood. </p><p>"You did just right," Hershel says. "But we - stay here, we need the bag, Henry's got it still, Glenn needs it -"<br/><br/>But instead of staying, Daryl is running, a stitch in his side, and he's over the railing and in with Henry before Hershel can stop him. He passes Maggie, Maggie's face terrible, terrible, but then he's in with Henry and that's a kind of terrible he knows how to deal with. He's got the advantage of surprise, of not having to fight someone a head taller, of the adrenaline of knowing Hershel is right behind him and if he doesn't do this quick it'll be Hershel in there, Hershel with his one leg, Hershel - </p><p>He does it quick. Knife in, out, careful not to hit the bag. He's back over the rail, bag clenched in his fist, and he holds it out to Hershel whose already sterilyzing a tube, coaxing it down Glenn's throat almost before he can blink, Maggie's hands holding Glenn's, Glenn spluttering and rattling -</p><p>And then his breathing slows. Stills. He's gone, Daryl thinks, it wasn't enough, he's - but then Hershel pumps the bag and Glenn breathes again. <br/><br/>They did it. They did it. <br/><br/>"Daryl?" he hears, and he can see Maggie's face, pinched with worry as she reaches for the bag, can feel Hershel's hands on him, can hear "He's overdone it, he's still sick, he -"<br/><br/>But then he doesn't hear anymore.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Too Far Gone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lizzie is there when he wakes up, and he sits up quick. <br/><br/>"Glenn - Hershel -" <br/><br/>"They're okay," Lizzie says. "Bob already gave them their medicine. Us too. He's finishing downstairs now." <br/><br/>"They're back?" <br/><br/>"Yeah," Lizzies says. "Last night. You slept through it."<br/><br/>"Oh." They're back. But what about Rick and Carol? They must be back by now. Right? "Carol been by yet?"<br/><br/>Lizzie bites her lip. Shakes her head. <br/><br/>"How come you killed him?"<br/><br/>Daryl blinks. Wonders if he missed something, if the fever - but he doesn't even feel like he has a fever now. His skin feels cool. Lucky, Sophia whispers in his ear. <br/><br/>"Who?"<br/><br/>"Henry."<br/><br/>He squints at her. "I din't. He - it was the flu, he couldn't breathe no more -"<br/><br/>"The second time you did. You stabbed him in the head. I saw you."<br/><br/>"We needed that bag for Glenn," Daryl says slowly. "An' he was dead already."<br/><br/>"But - you saw, right? He listened to me, earlier. He was listening."<br/><br/>Daryl stares at her. "Naw, he weren't - he just was goin' for you, 'sall. You did a good job," he adds, "Gettin' him away from Glenn that was, uh, real smart. And brave." He doesn't know what you're meant to say to kids. "But he wadn't - that wasn't Henry anymore."<br/><br/>"It was!" Lizzie says, her face suddenly stormy with anger. "He was just different, but we're all different now, that's no reason to kill him!"<br/><br/>"We needed that bag or Glenn woulda died," Daryl says. He's trying to stay calm, to be nice, like Carol would want, but he feels the anger building in him. He feels guilty for plenty - most recently, for yelling at Glenn and leaving him alone with a guy who turned into a walker - but he doesn't feel guilty for ending what was left of Henry. That's one of the things he feels good about. "Henry wouldn't a wanted to be like that, anyway."<br/><br/>"You coulda asked him."<br/><br/>"Walkers can't talk."<br/><br/>"Maybe they do," Lizzie says fiercely. "And we just don't understand them."<br/><br/>Daryl doesn't know what to do. This is weird and tense and too much and he feels like he's missing something here, that there's a part he doesn't get that would make this whole interaction go smoother. But he doesn't have it, and he doesn't know where to get it, and it's not like he's great with kids anyway, so he scowls at her. <br/><br/>"Even if they did, it wouldn't matter, would it? Because we still couldn't a asked Henry anything."<br/><br/>"Nobody gets it," Lizzie says fiercely. She slumps down in the chair and kicks the toe of her cowboy boot into the floor. "I thought you'd get it. You saw. He -"<br/><br/>"I saw you actin' like walker bait and a walker tryin' to take you up on it," Daryl snaps. <br/><br/>"That's not what happened," Lizzie says. "No one gets it. Not even when they see it. It's not fair. I don't know how else to make people understand! I thought if someone could see - but you're just like the others." She kicks her boot into the floor again, then stands up. "You'll see. I'll show you. It's not like how you all think. It's just different." And she stomps away. <br/><br/>Daryl's not sure what to do with that - go after her? Apologize? No fucking way is he apologizing for killing a walker and saving Glenn's life - </p><p>But then Hershel is there and Daryl doesn't care about weird Lizzie anymore. <br/><br/>"Much better," Hershel says approvingly, and he takes the chair Lizzie just vacated. "Your fever's broken. How do you feel?"<br/><br/>"A'right," he says. "Good."<br/><br/>"Good is great." He leans out, takes Daryl's wrist, takes his pulse. "You've got some color in your cheeks."<br/><br/>"Is Glenn okay?"<br/><br/>"He's fine. Breathing on his own." Hershel looks at him sternly. "That was a very foolish thing you did. Jumping after Henry like that. You -"<br/><br/>"Wadn't any foolisher'n what you were gonna do," Daryl mumbles. He peeks up at Hershel through his bangs, and after a moment, Hershel smiles. <br/><br/>"Smart ass."<br/><br/>Daryl's a little shocked - Hershel never cusses - but the look on Hershel's face, impish, makes him look years younger. That's what Hershel looked like as a kid, Daryl thinks. He imagines Hershel as a kid, little suspenders and knee pants, and he grins back at him. <br/><br/>"You're going to be okay," Hershel says, and he pats Daryl on the shoulder. Daryl doesn't flinch. <br/><br/>"I - I saw weird things," Daryl says. He's not sure where he's going with this. "When I was sick."<br/><br/>"A lot of people did," Hershel says. He's watching Daryl carefully. <br/><br/>"I - say anything weird to you? When I was out?"<br/><br/>"Not weird," Hershel says gently. "Understandable."<br/><br/>Daryl feels his neck flush, his ears go hot. "Oh."<br/><br/>"Daryl." Hershel's eyes are gentle with understanding. "Nightmares aren't anything to be ashamed of."<br/><br/>"Wadn't only nightmares," Daryl mumbles. Remembers Sophia's weight next to him, the coolness she brought. <br/><br/>"Whatever it was - it's yours." Hershel smooths a hand over Daryl's forehead, moves his bangs out of the way. It's a move he normally doesn't let anyone but Carol do, but he lets it happen. Hershel's hand is soft and cool. "If you want to talk about it - any of it - I'm here."<br/><br/>"M'fine," Daryl mumbles. He doesn't know if he'll ever tell anyone about being visited by Sophia. Or about the nightmares he'd had before - his dad, so mad, Carol hating him, the walls of his cell on fire, like the fire that killed his mother, burning him up -<br/><br/>"Well. It's a standing invitation. Whenever you'd like." Hershel gets up. He's moving slow - he probably irritated his stump half to hell, all the running and pressure he'd been putting on it. <br/><br/>"Is - is Rick back?" Daryl asks as Hershel heads to the door. He won't ask about Carol, he can't, but she was with Rick. If Rick is back - </p><p>"He is," Hershel says slowly. "He'll be in to talk to you." And Daryl wonders if he's really better because he can't really breathe all of a sudden, his chest feels too tight.<br/><br/>"Carol?" he asks, and his voice is small. <br/><br/>"She's all right," Hershel says gently. "Woah, Daryl, careful. She's all right. Breathe." He takes in a breath, then lets it out. Another. <br/><br/>"She - if she were back, she'd be to see me. And Lizzie," Daryl adds as an afterthought. Carol would know what to do with Lizzie. <br/><br/>"Rick will explain everything. But she's just fine, Daryl. She's just fine."<br/><br/>Daryl nods. <br/><br/>"And Daryl? If you want to talk - about anything - I'm always here. All right?"<br/><br/>Daryl nods again. Hershel leaves. <br/><br/>It's the last thing Hershel ever says to him.</p><hr/><p>Rick doesn't come in to talk to him, because Daryl finds him first. <br/><br/>The meds are working better than shit raided from a vet school should. Almost everybody who was still alive at the end of last nights walker attack is sitting up, recovering. No one pays him a second thought as he slips out of A Block. <br/><br/>Rick's in the fields with Carl. Of course he is. He's opened up some plant and is handing it over to Carl, like a little snack. He looks up when he hears Daryl coming and his face shifts immediately. He holds out a hand, placatingly. <br/><br/>"Daryl. Hey, you shouldn't be up and around, you should be resting -"<br/><br/>"Where's Carol?" he blurts out. He swung by C Block first, just to check she wasn't there, and everything is still in her cell. That stupid scarf Daryl got her, her clothes, neatly folded. The flower pin, pinned to the inside of her pillowcase, next to a photo of her and Sophia - faded and wrinkled from too much folding. One ragged edge and the hint of a man's hand on Carol's shoulder. Sophia is missing her two front teeth. Carol would never have left that. All the other stuff, sure, but not that. <br/><br/>He grabs the pin and the photo. And his bow too. Just in case. <br/><br/>"Well, now. Daryl, it wasn't an easy decision -"<br/><br/>"Thought you weren't the one makin' the decisions anymore," Daryl says. His skin is thrumming with energy. He looks at Carl, but Carl looks as clueless as he feels. He looks back at Rick. Please, he thinks. Please, just tell me where she is, when she's coming back. Please. <br/><br/>"She killed David and Karen."<br/><br/>Carl's jaw drops. Daryl's doesn't. He remembers Carol's face, hearing them cough. <em>I tried. should have stopped this.</em></p><p>"They were dyin'," Daryl says. "An' that don't explain where she is."<br/><br/>The answer is, Rick doesn't know. </p><p>Daryl can't hear or see for a moment, he is so full of rage. It's like nothing has changed over the past two years, like Rick just cuffed his dad to a rooftop again and he's all alone. Rick doesn't get it - sure Carol isn't perfect, but she's the closest to it Daryl's ever seen. He thinks of the survivors of the virus, pitifully few, none who got sick in the first wave. If it had worked, what would two lives have been, next to all the ones who they'd lost? And they would have died anyway, Daryl knows. <br/><br/>He thinks of Karen holding Luke and Lizzie in her cell, shielding them from walkers. He pushes it away.</p><p>"She didn't want to leave you, Daryl," Rick is saying urgently, when Daryl is able to hear again. "She said she wouldn't go anywhere without you, or Lizzie and Mika, but you and Lizzie were sick and I told her -"<br/><br/>"Told her what? That we'd die out there if she took us an' it'd be her fault?" Daryl fires at him and takes a perverse satisfaction when Rick flinches. "You couldn't have waited until -"<br/><br/>"Waited until what? Until Tyreese came back? You saw him, he would have -"<br/><br/>"I could have handled it," Daryl says, thinks of Tyreese's huge hands, his strong back. "I coulda -"<br/><br/>"She killed two of our own," Rick says firmly. "She couldn't be here." Why is Rick the one who gets to make these decisions, of who can and cannot be here? Why isn't Daryl ever the one to choose? Because he's just a kid, and that means adults get to screw him, over and over and over again. "She's going to be all right. She's got a car, supplies, weapons. She's a survivor."<br/><br/>"Stop sayin' that you don't believe it!" Daryl hisses, and Rick looks at him with the most amazing amount of pity. Rick doesn't understand - of course Carol will be all right. She's a survivor, sure. But Daryl is too, and he should be with her. <em>You're taking good care of her,</em> the wind says against his ear in Sophia's voice. </p><p>"She did it," Rick says fiercely. "She said it was for us." Of course it was for them - who else would it be for? "That's how it was in her head. She wasn't sorry." <br/><br/>"Man, that's her, but that ain't her," Daryl says. He doesn't know how to explain it - that of course she did this, if she thought there was a chance, any chance, to protect the others. That's her all over. Killing Karen and David isn't her. Killing threats is. And those things are so far apart it feels like they shouldn't even connect to each other. He spits. "What about Lizzie and Mika?"<br/><br/>What about me, he thinks. What about me?</p><p>"I told her I'd look after them. And you too, Daryl. I know you and Carol were close, but we'll look after you here even if she -"</p><p>"Don't need nobody lookin' after me," Daryl snarls. "Kin look after myself. Ain't a kid."</p><p>"Daryl -"</p><p>"Don't fuckin' need nobody. An' a good thing too, with Rick Grimes around!"<br/><br/>Rick flinches again. Among the tall green of his crops, his son behind his shoulder, Daryl hates him. </p><p><br/>"I told her I'd look out for 'em," Daryl says. "I'll tell 'em."<br/><br/>"Daryl - you don't have to. You -"<br/><br/>"She asked me to so I will. I ain't gonna let you jus' erase her."<br/><br/>"I don't want to erase her," Rick says. "I just want everyone to be safe. I had to."<br/><br/>"Naw," Daryl spits. "You didn't." And he storms away. </p><p>He remembers this feeling after they came back from Atlanta without his dad. That feeling under the skin that he'd never forgive Rick or Glenn or the others, for leaving him behind. Never. He'd forgiven them, he realizes now. He wonders if he even made it a full week without forgiving them and his stomach tightens. But this time is different. He'll never forgive Rick for this. Never. Never. </p><p>Never.</p><p>That's what he's thinking when the first explosion comes.</p><hr/><p>The first thing he sees is the Governor is standing on a fucking tank. <br/><br/>The second this is Michonne. <br/><br/>The third thing is Hershel. </p><p>They should never have stopped looking. Michonne never had, had been out and back a dozen times, more, but Daryl didn't go with her anymore. The trail was cold. There were more important things to do. <br/><br/>Nothing should have been more important than this. </p><p>Maggie and Beth are clinging to each other. Rick seems almost lost. Everyone else, everyone well enough, is clustered around, hands on guns, paralyzed. <br/><br/>Rick is looking straight at him. Like there's something he wants from Daryl, something he needs. Daryl looks back, but then his gaze casts over to Hershel and Michonne. Hershel is kneeling heavily, a little lopsided - he's putting more weight on his good leg. Michonne's lips are twisted in disgust, a pale band-aid sticking out on her dark forehead. </p><p>When he looks back, Rick is still looking at Daryl. He nods. And goes to Carl.</p><p>Daryl doesn't know what Rick got from him, but he got something. Because now Rick is opening the gate and making his way down the gravel drive to where the Governor waits. </p><p>He looks small, walking through the field, defenseless. The remaining few cluster closer at the top of the hill. Watch him go. <br/><br/>"What now?" Sasha asks. She's much better than she looked yesterday but still a little shaky, a little unsteady. She's got her hand on her gun. <br/><br/>"We can't take 'em all on," Daryl says. He's chewing his thumbnail. "We ain't got the numbers no more."<br/><br/>Tyreese is looking at him and Daryl wonders if he knows, about Carol, if he's about to -</p><p>"Evacuation," Daryl says. He looks at Maggie, at Beth, but their eyes are glued on Hershel. Someone has to make a plan. "Best is out through the admin building to the woods," he says, squinting at the line of cars. That'd take them out on the opposite side of the prison, and once in the woods, they can vanish like ghosts. Maggie and Beth don't even acknowledge they hear him. Beth is crying, her lips running over some silent prayer. Maggie is a statue.</p><p>"When's the last time someone checked the stash on the bus?" Daryl asks Sasha. Sasha frowns.<br/><br/>"Day before we hit the Big Spot," Sasha says. Daryl chews his lip. It's not good, but it's not bad either. "We were running low on rations then, we're lower now." <br/><br/>Lower is better than nothing. And lower is what they've got, so it'll have to do. </p><p>"Tell everybody," Daryl says. "Things go bad, they head for that bus."<br/><br/>Tyreese is looking at him like he's not sure he wants to listen to some fucking kid. But the kid is the only one talking. </p><p>"What if everybody doesn't know when things go bad?" Tyreese asks. "How long do we wait?"<br/><br/>"As long as we can," Carl says. His eyes are fixed on Rick. </p><p>As long as they can. </p><p>Daryl's stealthy when he wants to be. He goes over to the laundry cart, sneaks a look down - still full of weapons, full clips, a tiny sack of grenades, everything they need. He inches it backwards, nervous the Governor might see, but he's completely focused on Rick.<br/><br/>"I have a tank," Daryl can hear him saying, and the voice is smooth and reminds Daryl of things he doesn't want to think about. "And I'm letting you walk away!"<br/><br/>Daryl hides the guns are well as he can - long ones hidden behind his leg, small ones under his shirt. He pockets grenades and passes everything out - the Sasha, to Tyreese, to Bob. To Maggie, Maggie who gasps when she feels him come up and nudge her with the gun. She looks down at it, then back up at Daryl. Her trance broken. <br/><br/>"We gon' get 'im," Daryl whispers. And Maggie just nods. And takes the gun. </p><p>"We'll win and you'll be dead. All of you. It doesn't have to be like that. Like I said. Your choice."<br/><br/>The Governor isn't even looking at them. Daryl finds himself braced behind a wall, next to Carl, both of them taking aim. Daryl aims for the Governor. <br/><br/>"We've gotta do something," Carl says, and Daryl just keeps trying to sight the Governor. The gun isn't as comfortable in his hands as the bow, and he needs to remember to adjust - bolts and bullets fly totally different. <br/><br/>"Your dad's got it," Daryl mumbles, and Carl cuts a look his way. <br/><br/>"Really? After Carol?" Daryl freezes. "They're talking, we could kill the Governor right now -"<br/><br/>"From fifty yards?" Daryl snipes. <br/><br/>"I'm a good shot. I could end this right now," Carl says. Daryl can see his finger tightening, ever so slightly, on the trigger. <br/><br/>"Yeah, or you start somethin' else," Daryl grunts. He takes a chance and thumps Carl with his elbow. "You gotta trust him."<br/><br/>"Like you do?"<br/><br/>Daryl thinks. He doesn't trust Rick not to ruin things for Daryl. But he'd never put Carl or Judith in danger. "On this? I do."<br/><br/>"We can all live in the prison," he hears Rick say from the bottom of the hill, "or none of us can."<br/><br/>And then the sword is against Hershel's throat. <br/><br/>No, Daryl thinks, no. He hears Maggie and Beth lunging forward, their hands gripping the chain link like they could teleport down there. Daryl starts lining up his sight.<br/><br/>Hershel looks calm. He's not cowering. He's not weak. He looks tall and strong. <br/><br/>"We can still come back," Rick is saying. "We're not too far gone."<br/><br/>Hershel will come back. Carol will come back. They'll all come back.</p><p>"We get to come back," Rick says. "I know we all can change."</p><p>The sword moves away from Hershel's neck and even at this distance, Daryl thinks he can see a smile, a glimmer of pride, behind Hershel's beard.</p><p>"Liar."<br/><br/>And then Hershel's head is hanging crazily from his neck, halfway. Daryl watches for a moment, his brain trying to make sense - no, no, what will they do, how will they fix it, how -</p><p>And then Hershel has no head.</p><hr/><p>Maggie is screaming, Beth is screaming, Rick is screaming, but Daryl is silent. </p><p>Guns are firing immediately, Daryl's gun too, shot after shot, bangs echoing everywhere, but all Daryl hears is Maggie screaming, Beth screaming. <br/><br/>"Daddy! Daddy!"<br/><br/>Maggie with no words, just pain, pain, pain, ringing in his ears -</p><p>His cheek feels wet against the stock of the gun and he wonders if the kickback cut him, if he's bleeding, before he realizes he's crying. <br/><br/>Hershel had put him back together more times than he can remember. But now he's apart, apart in a million pieces and he just keeps firing, firing, firing -</p><p>Michonne's body isn't next to Hershel's and Daryl wonders if that means she got away or if it means she's hidden in the tall grass, dead like Hershel, dead - </p><p>The Governor is slicing away at something, slice slice slice, and Daryl wonder's if it's Hershel, if he's going to take Hershel's head and put him in a fish tank and -</p><p>Daryl won't let him. No. No.</p><p>No.</p><p>The tank is rolling forward pulling the fences down, a screech of metal, and that seems to be the moment that everyone realizes it's not time to wait anymore. </p><p>People are firing and firing and when they finish heading for the bus and there's smoke from the tank firing out the window. He can hear people screaming, go go go, jobs to do, but Daryl just keeps firing and firing and firing -</p><p>They shoot up the kitchen, the water tanks, the walls. It's gone. It's all gone.</p><p>It's only when he reloads that he realizes that now he's got to fight on two fronts - the Governor's people in front of him, walkers coming from behind. </p><p>One of the walkers lands on him, heavy, and he falls. <br/><br/>For a second he thinks about how easy it'd be to just be still, but he remembers Hershel - <em>you're fighters, all of you</em> - and he stabs the fucker in the head. He remembers T-Dog on the highway, the herd, hiding under the bodies, and he wishes he could just hide here, under this walker, until it was all over. <br/><br/>But if he hid, it wouldn't end the way he wanted it to. </p><p>He compromises - hides behind the walker, walks it across the yard like a human shield, like a grotesque puppet, fires from behind it. He pulls the pin on a grenade, tosses it. </p><p>And when he looks up, the people shooting him are gone. </p><p>So is the bus. </p><p>And so is everything else.</p><hr/><p>The only things left behind are walkers - over and over, everywhere, all directions, no safe harbor - and that fucking tank. </p><p>He takes care of the tank, and then he takes care of the tank operator. The arrow sticks out of the guys chest. He looks like he's Merle's age, army cap. Daryl wonders if he knows Merle, if he could find him, if he has a kid brother back home who he took care of. None of that matters though, because the guy is dead and Daryl killed him and now Daryl is alone, the last thing standing, in the ashes and debris of the life he'd built. </p><p>Until he hears Beth yelling "Daryl!" <br/><br/>She's running towards him, gun clutched in her hands, eyes frantic. "I was trying to find the kids, to get them on the bus -"<br/><br/>"We gotta go, Beth," Daryl says quickly. She's alive, he's alive, they might be the last two left. Hershel would want - "We gotta go."<br/><br/>He expects her to argue, to disagree, to say she can't leave without Maggie, without Judith, without her dad. But she doesn't say anything. She just nods, checks her gun. Takes one last look at their broken home. </p><p>"Let's go," she says, and they run. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Inmates</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They run until they literally can't anymore, collapsing into a field of tall grass. Daryl's chest feels like it's on fire - he's not sure if it's because he was sick or from all the running. He'd dropped the semiautomatic somewhere - stupid - but it was heavy and he didn't have any ammo left and the bow is better than that anyways. Beth is ahead of him the whole way and he tries to just follow her ponytail, gleaming white gold in the light of dusk. They must have run all day, because the sun is setting when they fall, when they catch their breath. <br/><br/>"Gotta make a fire," Daryl says when he can breathe enough to talk again. This is what he knows - living rough, the outdoors. Survival. He's good at that. "Not too big, or it'll draw the walkers. C'mon."<br/><br/>Beth is still panting, but she nods. <br/><br/>They set up camp. Beth doesn't say anything. for a long time. Gathers sticks and dead leaves as he digs a hole, builds a pit to shield the fire from the wind, from walker's eyes. He has his lighter in his jean pocket - he'd kept it on him since Hershel had confiscated the last one, and the cigarettes Daryl had found too. He and Carl had smoked them behind the admin building. Carl was puking when Hershel caught them. </p><p>The thought of Hershel takes his breath away again and he focuses on making the fire. </p><p>"We should do something," Beth says once the fire is lit. Daryl doesn't know what they can do other than this. Build a fire. Keep watch. Find the supplies they need. Keep moving. Stay alive. "Daryl. We should do something."<br/><br/>What if she means pray? Pray for her dead dad? Daryl's stomach twists. Hershel should have someone saying a prayer for him. He'd like that. But Daryl doesn't think he can. <br/><br/>"We aren't the only survivors," she says, and his stomach untwists, then twists the opposite way. Oh no. Not this. <br/><br/>He just looks at her. Thinks about what they'd run from - overrun with walkers, the tank. He looks away. <br/><br/>"We can't be'," Beth says, her face intent. "Rick, Michonne, they could be out here. Maggie and Glenn could have made it off A Block."<br/><br/>Daryl thinks of their desperate run through the woods, of his chest burning. Thinks about Glenn, last night - was it only last night? - choking on his own blood. He says nothing. </p><p>"They could've!" Beth says, her voice going up. He doesn't know what she wants from him. He doesn't know what Hershel would want of him - to be kind to her, he guesses. To comfort her. But Daryl doesn't know how to do that. Doesn't know how to lie, how to give her false hope. So he says nothing at all. <br/><br/>"You're a tracker," Beth says insistently. "You can track." He thinks of their run, their mad dash, wonders what tracks they trampled, wonders how he'd even find his way back to the prison to look. "Come on, the sun'll be up soon. If we head out now, we can -"<br/><br/>It's the dark of the moon. It's probably not even midnight. The sun is far from where they are. </p><p>"Fine," she says, and she sounds like a pouty brat. "If you won't track, I will."<br/><br/>At least she grabs her night before she storms off into the dark. </p><p>He puts out the fire before he goes after her. </p><p>He still doesn't know what to say.</p><hr/><p>He does better than he thought he would. By mid morning, they're reasonably close to the prison, and he finds a trail. But it's at least a half day old. He frowns at it. Little shoe prints. Lizzie? Or Mika? <br/><br/>He'd promised to look after them. He'd broken that promise too. </p><p>"Whoever it is, it means they're alive," Beth says, and she sounds so relieved that Daryl turns on her. <br/><br/>"Naw, means they were alive four or five hours ago," he mutters. Beth glares at him. <br/><br/>"They're alive," she snaps. And storms off again. <br/><br/>At least she's careful not to mess up the tracks. </p><p>"Picked up the pace here," he says, pointing at the ground. Mashed up grapes. "Things wen't bad." He can tell from the scuffed way the boots go, the movement, but even if he hadn't seen that, he'd have known. It all goes bad. That's what he's learned now. </p><p>"Wouldn't kill you to have a little faith," Beth scolds him, and she sounds like Hershel and it makes him scowl. <br/><br/>"Yeah, faith. Faith ain't done shit for us," he says. It had done less than shit for Hershel. He sees his head, hanging, his neck -</p><p>Had anyone ended him? Before he came back? He imagines Hershel, alone in the field outside the prison, eyes open, jaw snapping, growling -</p><p>It makes him want to scream so he just scowls harder, scours the ground. </p><p>"Sure as hell din't do nothin' for your father," he mutters, and he feels Beth spin around, outraged. <br/><br/>Be kind, that's all Hershel would want of him. Give her comfort. </p><p>He can't give anyone anything. He's not built for it. <br/><br/>Beth's started gathering grapes - never mind they have nowhere to put them. Daryl shifts. Almost goes over to help her - to apologize, to try and be kind - but then she snaps over her shoulder, not even looking at him, "They'll be hungry when we find them."</p><p>He doesn't know what to do - yell at her? Help her? - so he just reaches into his pocket. Gives her a bandana - Carol's. He'd found it that morning as he left A Block, washed and folded and hung neatly on the end of his bed. He doesn't know how it got there, and he doesn't care. Even though it's been washed, it still smells faintly like her. <br/><br/>He hands it over to Beth and Beth finally takes it. Unrolls it. Stores the grapes in there. <br/><br/>They can always eat them themselves later, Daryl tells himself. </p><hr/><p>The walker jumps Beth and Daryl doesn't know what to do. He tries to get a shot off but Beth is moving too much, twisting, fighting to get away - what if he hits Beth instead of her dad, kills her like he killed her dad by not looking for the Governor, by -</p><p>He throws his bow to the ground and just grabs for the walker. He can't let it get Beth, he can't -</p><p>But Beth has his knife, he gave it to her yesterday, he's got his hands full of walker and his bow is six feet back and his knife - </p><p>His knife is being sunk into the walker's forehead by Beth, quickly, efficiently. </p><p>He rolls the walker off himself, edges out from under him, scowls. He's panting again, his adrenaline rushing too high. He almost wants to yell at Beth, for getting grabbed, for having his knife, but that doesn't make sense and she killed the walker anyway so he pushes the thought aside and keeps moving. <br/><br/>"C'mon," he mutters, and he keeps following the trail.</p><p>People can survive more than you'd think. He thinks of himself as a little kid, lasting nine days in the woods. Sophia's lasted a night. Beth looks like she'd break at the first wind to knock into her, but she's tough as nails. And she's been watching all those kids, and Carol has. Maybe those kids are tough too, maybe - </p><p>But they aren't. Of course they aren't. They're children, alone, in the big bad woods. </p><p>Or they were.<br/><br/>He kills the walkers. It's the least he can do. It feels weirdly private, the moment that Beth realizes what the walkers are eating. He walks away, scrubs at his bolts on his pants legs. <br/><br/>He can hear her, sobbing, behind him, and he takes some further steps. It's private. She doesn't want him sticking in. <br/><br/>But then he looks back and it's just her, alone. Weeping. <br/><br/>Be kind, he hears Hershel say in his head. Give her comfort. </p><p>But he doesn't know how.</p><hr/><p>At the fire that night, she's the one that gives him something. She has a notebook shoved in her back pocket - he thought it was a bible, like how Hershel used to carry a bible with him, but it's just a regular notebook. "Here," she says brusquely. She hands him a numbers of balled up pages. It's too dim to tell if there's writing on them or not. "To help start the fire."<br/><br/>He takes them. Tosses them in. <br/><br/>She watches them burn like the secret to the future is written on them. They burn quick - shrivel up into little black ashes, then smoke, then nothing left at all. </p><p>She stares at the fire. He stares at her. <br/><br/>He should do something, say something. They're the only things left now. They have to make a plan. <br/><br/>"We should - find supplies," he says. His voice feels rusty from lack of use, and he clears his throat. "Tomorrow. Find what we need to. Make a secure camp." <br/><br/>She looks at him. <br/><br/>"We done it before," he says. Remembers the long winter on the road, scavenging and foraging, building systems. "Can find what we need'n figure out what we want for shelter." He wants the safety of four walls but he doesn't know if he wants to go inside again so soon. He doesn't want to get fooled about what those walls mean. "Can set some snares, maybe. Get some food."<br/><br/>She's still looking at him. Then she nods, once. <br/><br/>"We'll be a'right," he says. <br/><br/>"What about the others?"<br/><br/>He doesn't have anything to say to that.</p><hr/><p>He dreams that night like he's still sick. </p><p>It's vivid, everything. He's sitting in the shot out guard tower. It's smoldering around him but he doesn't feel the heat, or any flames. He smells the smoke but it smells like cigarettes, like when Merle used to smoke in their bedroom at night, cracking a window in the hopes that Dad wouldn't notice. It wraps around him like a blanket and he breathes deep. Too deep - he starts to cough.<br/><br/>"Those things'll kill you," someone says, and Hershel is there, next to him. Hershel like he was at the farm, two legs and shorter hair, clean shaven. He nudges at Daryl with his leg, whole and well. "Budge over."<br/><br/>Daryl does. <br/><br/>"Let me see your stitches."<br/><br/>Daryl pulls his hair to the side. Hershel's fingers glide over his scalp. "Healing nicely."<br/><br/>"Healed a long time ago," Daryl mutters. <br/><br/>"Hm. Maybe."<br/><br/>They look out from the guard tower. They're over the quarry. The water looks sparkling blue and deep enough to drown in. <br/><br/>"You want to swim?" Hershel asks. Daryl shakes his head. <br/><br/>"My back," he says. Hershel nods. <br/><br/>"Mine too. We could go together."<br/><br/>And then they're swimming, swimming in the water, him and Hershel and Merle. Merle is splashing him, wave after wave, cackling. Daryl can't see Hershel's back and he wonders if Hershel can see his, but it doesn't matter. Merle paddles over somewhere else, with one last splash, and then Daryl is able to float on his back, stare up at the sky. It's daytime but he can see all the stars.<br/><br/>"Can you find it?" Hershel asks, and Daryl squints. "The Big Dipper."<br/><br/>"No," he says, his eyes searching and searching. But the stars are jumbled, a puzzle put together the wrong way, and he can't find a single one he knows. No way to orient himself. He's lost. He feels his breathing quicken as he tries to see something familiar, something that's his. <br/><br/>"Careful now," Hershel says. His hands are under Daryl's back, supporting him. "Just focus. Look."<br/><br/>But he's looking and looking and there's nothing there, nothing -</p><p>"I'll show you," Hershel says, and he takes Daryl's arm. But his grip is tight, too tight, it hurts, and he turns to tell Hershel it's okay, to tell Hershel not to -</p><p>But it's not Hershel anymore, it's Shane, and he's gripping tight, so tight -</p><p>"Couldn't find your fuckin' dick with your eyes closed, couldya, fuckin' trash kid -"<br/><br/>And he squirms and twists and tries to get away but Shane is gripping him so tight he feels like if he kicks Shane will pull his arm right off and he can't, he needs his arm, how will he protect Beth - </p><p>Beth. Where's Beth? <br/><br/>He flails out and he's falling, falling through the water. Hershel isn't there to hold him up and he can't find Beth and even Shane is gone and he's drowning, drowning. Where is Beth? Where's Carol?<br/><br/>Help, he tries to yell, but nothing comes out except bubbles. <br/><br/>Shane isn't Shane anymore, or maybe he's Shane and more. He's Shane and his dad and the Governor all rolled into one, features jumbled and mashed up so he can only recognize them by the danger and the menace radiating outward, but then he's drifting downward again and they don't follow.<br/><br/>He is pulled deeper and deeper, down and down, and there's all sorts of things at the bottom of the quarry. The farmhouse is there, tipped on one side like a child's dollhouse, and the horses are there too, their manes floating in the water. He sees Nervous Nellie rearing back, tossing her tail, it floating eerily around her. The CDC is exploding in a loop, the fire bursting outwards, unencumbered by the water. Sophia is sitting in the bed of a pickup, wrapped in a sleeping bag, her own hair floating around her head. The deer he had almost caught the day his dad got left in Atlanta, it's shoulder all chewed up from the walker, runs through the bottom of the quarry, skipping from rock to rock. He better catch it, his dad said, come back with it or don't come back at all -<br/><br/>Where is Carol? Where is Hershel? He has to find Beth. He has to keep her safe. She's the only one left and he promised so much to so many people but if he can't keep any of those promises, he'll keep this one, this one he's making to himself. He'll keep Beth safe, he'll take care of her. For Hershel, for Carol. He'll do it. He'll do it.</p><p>He wakes up to Beth shaking his shoulder and he gasps like he really was under water, like he hasn't breathed in a hundred years. <br/><br/>"Are you okay?"</p><p>He just nods, rubs at his throat, looks around. It's all gone - the quarry, the guard tower. Hershel. He tries to remember the beginning of the dream - it was nice, he thought, there was something about floating - but all he can remember is hands gripping too tight and going and deeper and deeper underwater, it getting darker and darker, and being alone. <br/><br/>Totally alone. <br/><br/>"Are you sure?" Beth says, and she's frowning. She reaches out to touch his forehead and he flinches back. <br/><br/>"Don' touch me," he grunts, and she pulls back. She looks a little hurt. <br/><br/>"Sorry. I was just - it's your turn for watch."<br/><br/>Daryl nods. Rubs at his face, his hair. Sits up. <br/><br/>"Are you sure you're all right? You - you were just pretty sick. Maybe I should - I can take another shift. Maybe you should sleep -"<br/><br/>"Ain't sleepin' again tonight," Daryl mumbles. "Might as well go."<br/><br/>Beth hesitates, but Daryl just props himself up against the tree. Settles his crossbow on his lap. Waits. <br/><br/>"I - all right, then. I guess. Um - night."<br/><br/>And she curls up on the grass, her arms bare. She looks cold, Daryl thinks. He should give her something. But he doesn't have anything but the shirt on his back and the jeans he was wearing and the bow. <br/><br/>So he watches as she settles in to sleep, arms wrapped around herself. He doesn't take his eyes off of her for the whole watch. <br/><br/>He's not going to lose her. Not her too. <br/><br/>He won't let it happen.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Still (Part 1)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When they get out of the car truck, they haven't spoken in two days. <br/><br/>Daryl's not good at talking. He never has been. But Beth is. She talks all the time, to anybody, bending their ears off - he remembers her carrying Judith around, bouncing her up and down, talking nonsense to her or singing songs. Beth makes noise, and Daryl prepares himself to deal with it. But he never has to. Because after they find the kid's shoe, after Daryl's nightmare, Beth hardly speaks. </p><p>He thinks she's going to when they hide in the car trunk. He's glad he's just a kid then - he doesn't think two adults would fit in the trunk, not comfortably. Well, not that he and Beth really fit comfortably. It's too close in there, humid and hot, sticky, and after he ropes the trunk shut with his bandana, he expects Beth to say something, about how cramped it is, about how much she wishes the car would start, how she hates this, how she hates Daryl. But she doesn't say anything. He can see her eyes, every so often, illuminated by the flash of lightning that cracks through the gap between the trunk hatch and the bumper. They're wide and she's sweating - he is too, it's hot in there. Although once the rain starts in earnest, it gets cold quick, and the trunk feels clammy instead. At one point, he wonders if water is getting in or if they're generating the wetness with their breath, with their sweat, with, possibly, he thinks, looking at Beth, with her tears. They flinch whenever the lightning strikes, when the thunder starts up again, and Daryl wonders if this was the right move. Cars were meant to be safe in storms, he remembers that. Something about the tires, insulating them, being up off the ground. But all he can feel is the metal of the car all around them, and he's grateful for it in some ways - it keeps the walkers out, their hands scrabbling and sliding at the outside of the car - but in others it feels like taking shelter in a goddamn weather vane. Like lightning is going to strike and he's going to get Beth killed, already, after everything - </p><p>He doesn't remember falling asleep, and maybe he doesn't. But there's a moment that feels like waking up, when he and Beth lock eyes and realize - </p><p>It's quiet. The rain has stopped. <br/><br/>And so have the walkers.</p><hr/><p>Daryl can't remember ever feeling so tired as he is after the night in the trunk. But there's no time for rest. The car is valuable - it won't start, but it's full of stuff, They go over it without any communication - it's a routine that used to be familiar, from their long winter on the road, and they fall back into it easy. Or Daryl does. He can't tell about Beth. <br/><br/>Beth's on fire duty and he's on food. He gets a rattlesnake, which he thinks is pretty fucking impressive - he's never caught one, let alone one this big. He thinks about how to save the rattle - Carl will think it's so cool, he'll - but then he remembers Carl won't ever see it and it feels less cool. Beth takes tiny, dainty bites of it, her even white teeth nibbling at it. Daryl thinks she must have had braces. Poor people didn't have teeth like that. Or maybe rich people genes were what did it, maybe rich people just naturally had better teeth. He feels himself staring and he spits, goes back to his own snake. He wasn't snaggletoothed or nothing but he'd never had any fucking braces. <br/><br/>Beth set up a good camp. Trip line, fire. He's impressed with the fire - he'd taken the lighter with him and it was almost out of fluid anyway, so she must have done it with the mirror they'd jacked from the car. Which was pretty good. He's wondering if he should say something about it when Beth speaks, her quiet voice feeling like a yell after two days of almost total silence. </p><p>"I need a drink."<br/><br/>At first he thinks she's talking about water. The snake is kinda salty, mostly because in the absence of spices, Daryl'd charred it pretty heavy over the fire. He tosses the water over. It lands at her knees with a thud, and he wonders if that was the best way to do it, just chuck it at her. Maybe he shoulda rolled it or something. <br/><br/>She looks annoyed at him and pushes the water to one side. "No, I mean a real drink." She pauses. "As in alcohol." She looks like her even white teeth have never said alcohol before in her life. <br/><br/>Daryl feels himself tense up but makes himself keep eating the rattlesnake. He worked hard for this food and who knows when they'll find more. He doesn't waste food. After - </p><p>She doesn't know what she's asking for. <br/><br/>"I've never had one," she says, and she sounds like she's at a fucking slumber party with her stupid girlfriends. "'Cause of - my dad?" Daryl forces himself to keep chewing, bite after bite. It's like sand in his mouth. "But he's - not exactly around anymore, so..." She trails off. Looks at him. "I thought we could go find some." The clearing is quiet except for the noise of Daryl chewing and the buzz of flies. "Come on. It'll be fun. You're younger than me, you probably haven't had one either. It can be our first time! Drinking, I mean. Alcohol."<br/><br/>Daryl thinks of his real first time - nine years old, sneaking moonshine from his dad's shed, puking all over Merle and then getting whupped when his dad figured out he'd messed with the still. <br/><br/>"I had one," he mumbles around the mouthful of snake. His voice is low and raspy.<br/><br/>"Well, I haven't. So - it's just fair." She waits. Daryl wonders what he says to that - that life isn't fucking fair? But it's something that shouldn't need saying to a girl whose dad just got his head chopped off in front of her, so he says nothing. She waits a little longer, then almost rolls her eyes at him. <br/><br/>"...Okay," she says finally. "Well, enjoy your snake jerky." Which makes him mad, because plenty of times in his life even before the walkers walked he'd have killed for snake jerky, or anything, filling him up. And then she goes over and takes his knife - his goddamn knife that he's lending her, to keep her safe, so she stays alive - and yanks it out of the log, slips it into the sheath she's got strapped around her thigh. <br/><br/>He should just let her go. Stupid bitch, looking her nose down at him when he fed her, he kept her safe, he provided - he should just let her go, he should - <br/><br/>Be kind, he thinks. Hershel would want him to be kind. <br/><br/>So he follows her. </p><p>She's not an idiot, he thinks grudgingly as she distract three walkers, sends them off in the other direction with a rock. She's not stupid. So why does she act like it? </p><p>She follows him, and after a minute she starts talking again. <br/><br/>"I think we need to go this way to find the booze - what the hell!" She runs into the perimeter boundary and seems surprised. Maybe she is stupid. She's the one who set the boundary, she can't even recognize she's getting near it? "I'm not staying in this suck ass camp!" She says, and she flips him the bird like a self-righteous third grader who just learned what it meant. It'd be funny if she didn't start going off again the second she did it. </p><p>Then it isn't funny at all. <br/><br/>"Hey!" he says, and he launches out and grabs her wrist. "Y'had your fun, we can't -"<br/><br/>"What the hell is wrong with you!" she yells at him, and she pulls away fast. Like whatever is wrong with him is all over his skin, like it'll get on her if she lets him touch her. Trash. He feels his cheeks redden and he scowls. "Do you feel anything?"<br/><br/>Of course. He feels everything. If he could feel nothing, he would. It'd make everything better. But he can't so he has to hide it away, in little boxes and secret chambers, as deep under his skin as he can get, in the hopes that hiding it will let him forget about it and forgetting will make it so he never has to feel it again. <br/><br/>"Yeah, you think everything's screwed, I guess that's a feeling," Beth snipes before he can even fit a word in. "So you wanna spend the rest of our lives staring into a fire and eating mud snakes?"<br/><br/>He doesn't want anything except to keep her safe. Maybe he wanted things before the prison fell, but that was before. And he doesn't want stuff he can't have. </p><p>He'd felt proud when he caught that snake. His dad would have liked it. His dad -</p><p>"Screw that," Beth says angrily. "We might as well do something!" <br/><br/>They are doing something. They're staying alive. Why isn't that enough?<br/><br/>Because that's just surviving, a little voice says from inside himself. Surviving isn't enough for her, she wants to live. </p><p>Daryl doesn't know how. <br/><br/>"I can take care of myself," Beth says, and Daryl thinks he's never heard a person less equipped to deal with themselves. He wonders if this is what the others think when he says it, if they see him as some weak baby, some brat who doesn't know ass from elbow. <br/><br/>No. He's different. He can take care of himself. He's had to practically his whole life. Beth never has. It's a thought that makes him incredibly sad all of a sudden, looking at her, her messy ponytail, the little heart necklace she's got on, the faded line of a scar on her wrist. She's never had to because Hershel has always been there. But he's not there anymore. She's alone. </p><p>She's only got him, and he's not good at taking care of anybody. </p><p>"I'm gonna get a damn drink," Beth finishes. And storms off. <br/><br/>Daryl can't do anything else. He follows her.</p><hr/><p>Beth's direction is a good one - they find the golf course by midday. Daryl wishes they'd found it yesterday. Would have been a hell of a lot nicer here then in the trunk of the car. <br/><br/>"Golfers - like to booze it up, right?" Daryl wonders what very special episode of what nineties sitcom Beth learned her drinking slang from. Booze it up?<br/> <br/>"I'unno," Daryl mumbles. He's never seen golfers in real life before. Maybe? <br/><br/>Beth leads the way, and that's fine with him. This isn't for him. It's for her, and he'll just follow until she gets tired of it. Even if she finds booze, even if she gets drunk and mean, Daryl'll follow her. He needs to. <br/><br/>He's not letting her out of his sight. Especially as the thunder starts up again from their backs.<br/><br/>He wonders what Hershel would think, as they start picking their way through the club house. His baby girl, knocking over a golf club to get wasted. The inside is dark - the windows are papered over - and it smells, but most everything does nowadays. A mix of mold and decay and walker, all rolled into one. On runs, Daryl's been places that have looked pristine and places that have been trashed, and this place has been trashed. He wonders if there was a reason or if the people who did it just liked trashing shit. <br/><br/>There's walkers hanging in the corner. Daryl wonders if they pulled a Jenner, if they opted out. But the knots around their necks look wrong for that - not a real noose, just twisted around and around. He frowns, shines the flashlight over them. Scans the floor - hoping to see the flashlight bounce off of a bottle - but it doesn't. Just more dead bodies. <br/><br/>More dead bodies and more money than Daryl's ever seen in his entire life. Whole wads of it - banded together like in the movies. He sees the number on the side of the bill - it's a hundred. That's a stack of hundreds. And there's more of them too, spilling out over the floor, disappearing into a red splotch under a dead woman. There's jewelry too - gold earrings, diamond necklaces, stones so fancy Daryl doesn't know what the fuck they are. <br/><br/>This is something real. He has this, it could change his life, he could - this is something real to barter, something of value, and he finds himself shoving it into a bag before he even knows what he's doing. <br/><br/>He feels Beth's eyes on him, quickens his pace - he'll share it with her too, it's money for them, it'll get them somewhere, maybe, if they need - <br/><br/>"Why are you keeping all that stuff?" Beth asks, and Daryl doesn't slow down. She's so stupid, stupid bitch, she thinks money isn't worth anything because she's always had it, because she's never had to go hungry because there wasn't enough for rent and food, because she always - </p><p>But then there's a banging on the door, walkers, and Daryl remembers where he is. <br/><br/>This money is worthless. Old world shit. What's he gonna do with it - buy his own place? Pay bail for Merle? Go grocery shopping? The jewelry, maybe, that might get him somewhere, but the money - it's just paper. Stupid fucking paper. He's the stupid one for forgetting, for thinking something as dumb as a wad of shitty money was going to be able to change his life when this is his life now - </p><p>He swings the bag over his shoulder - for the jewelry, he thinks, he'll go through it later, see what it's worth, some little stuff, for trade, for bribes, for insurance. Maybe something Beth would like to wear, too. Like her heart necklace. Something to show her, he's not a bad guy. He doesn't do words, but maybe if he gives her something she'll be able to hear what he's trying to say with it. <br/><br/>And maybe it doesn't feel so bad either, to have enough money on his back to get him the hell out of Georgia. Even if the money doesn't mean anything anymore. </p><hr/><p>The kitchen is fucking vile - mildew and moldy food and death, always, the smell of it thick in his nose, unescapable. He finds a knife, that's good - Beth's still got his - but anything useful, any real food, canned stuff, dry goods, it's all gone. Figures. Probably filling the bellies of those fucks hanging from the ceiling in the main room. </p><p>There's spices, though. Maybe if he finds some spices, Beth won't be so weird about snake jerky or squirrel stew or whatever. He grabs salt, pepper, paprika, whatever the fuck that is. Maybe this will -</p><p>But then there's a little clatter, a clang, and Daryl realizes he can't see Beth anymore. He's sweeping the kitchen for her, flashlight going over everything, until he hears another clang and a smash. The sound of glass breaking. <br/><br/>When he gets to Beth, the smell of wine is added to all the other shit in the air, and Beth looks like she's going to cry. <br/><br/>"Thanks for the help," she says, and Daryl feels lost. What'd he do?<br/><br/>"Y'said you could take care of yourself," he says. And she had. Stabbed the fucker in the head, bottled him. Merle'd be proud. "You did." <br/><br/>Daryl hated it when people tried to coddle him, tried to get in his way. He thought Beth would too. She was older than him, two years. She was eighteen already. Why would she want some sixteen year old kid getting in her way?</p><hr/><p>Beth gets freaked out by a mannequin, Daryl gets freaked out by the store. It's like it's filled with a bunch of rich fucks looking their noses down on him. Who let the redneck trash in? <br/><br/>The cash register won't open - not that he needs it to, he thinks, stupid - and he fills his pockets with matches and mints and he thinks that's probably it for him in this dumbass store. </p><p>That's when he sees the rich bitch. <br/><br/>He doesn't realize at first that she's cut in half and stuck on a mannequin. When he does, he squints a little. Chews at the peppermint stick he found near the front - like a fucking old fashioned candy store. He can't get the point of that. Of taking off her shirt and leaving her sweater on, of writing on her chest, of sticking her there like a joke. She's dead. Whatever she meant to anybody, she doesn't mean it now. <br/><br/>He almost loses the peppermint stick out of his mouth when another white sleeved arm appears. But it's just Beth, Beth back from playing fashion show. She's wearing the same exact sweater. <br/><br/>Daryl chomps on the peppermint stick a little harder. <br/><br/>"Help me take her down," Beth whispers, and Daryl wonders what good that will do. <br/><br/>"It don't matter," he says. "She's dead."<br/><br/>"It does matter," Beth says, and in that moment she sounds just like Hershel - it matters how we do things, it matters how we live and die, it matters - and all he can think of is Hershel, dead, Hershel's head hanging, Hershel - </p><p>He covers the body up with a table cloth so he doesn't have to see her or Hershel anymore. </p><p>And they keep going.</p><hr/><p>It's three o'clock - walker o'clock, Daryl thinks almost hysterically as he takes out three walkers, four walkers, five. They keep coming through the door and he keeps wondering if Beth is going to come, to help him. But he doesn't need her to. He can take care of himself. <br/><br/>The last one is an old man, suspenders poking out of his green sweater. That one, Daryl doesn't kill right off. He slams the golf club into him, over and over, feels the brittle bones of his arms break under the force of his hits, his head with it's dumb white hair finally splattered into nothing. He doesn't feel better. <br/><br/>And he got Beth all dirty too. Well, whatever. He shouldn't be the only one getting his hands dirty.<br/><br/>"We made it," Beth says softly. They're in a bar nicer than any bar Daryl's ever seen. Fucking stained glass, wood paneled. He feels like someone's gonna come grab him by the scruff of his neck and kick him out. We don't serve your kind here. But all that happens is Beth turns and looks at him. <br/><br/>Maybe she's going to say it. I don't need you, you're trash, you killed my daddy. Get gone. He almost wants her to.<br/><br/>But she doesn't. "I know you think this is stupid," Beth says fiercely. "And it probably is. But I don't care. All I wanted to do today was lay down and cry -" Daryl feels himself about to scoff, lip curling - "But we don't get to do that." He looks at her. She's looking at him like she sees him, and he's not sure she likes what she sees. "So beat up on walkers if that makes you feel better. I need to do this."</p><p>And then she's rummaging around behind the bar. <br/><br/>Beating up on walkers doesn't make him feel better. It doesn't make him feel anything. They're dead. He remembers his dad, thrown from the car, reaching out with broken fingers, gnashing bloody teeth. He stabbed him in the head over and over and he kept waiting to feel something, anything. But it was like there was a black hole inside him and all the feeling got swallowed up and it didn't come back until Carol found him. <br/><br/>Maybe that's what's happened now. He just needs to find Carol and all the feelings will come back and he'll be able to -</p><p>But he'll never find Carol again. She'd come back for him, he thinks, she'd go back to the prison, but the prison is gone. It's either overrun with walkers or maybe the Governor's men were able to rally, take the whole thing. Either way, she wouldn't go back there. Not now. And there's no place else to find her. She's gone, they're all gone, and that's all that's left. Him and Beth and a black hole sucking him dry. <br/><br/>He hears a crash and he spins on his heel, bow aimed at the bar. "Beth?" he calls, and he feels his breathing quicken, gets over there as quick as he can. "Beth, you -"<br/><br/>She's sitting on the floor, surrounded by the shards of a broken bottle. She looks up at him. "I tripped," she says, and it's now that her lower lip starts to wobble. "It was the only thing left. Peach schnapps."<br/><br/>Daryl's bow drops a little. "Lucky you," he says. "That shit's disgusting."<br/><br/>But then Beth is crying, crying into her hands, surrounded by dead bodies and broken glasses and the sickly sweet smell of schnapps lingering in the air. He doesn't know how to help her. He doesn't know what to do. He wants Hershel, fiercely, suddenly, with everything in him. Hershel would know. Hershel always knew. <br/><br/>Be kind, he thinks, and he frowns at Beth. <br/><br/>"I got an idea," he mumbles. "C'mon."<br/><br/>He goes out. Hears Beth, sniffling, follow. <br/> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Still (Part 2)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>He's pretty sure Hershel wouldn't have taken Beth to get lit on moonshine, but Daryl's not Hershel. <br/><br/>He'd been in Pine Vista before, with Michonne. Looking for the Governor. They'd found a cabin that looked so like his dad's one that Daryl almost turned and ran the other way. But they're too far south for that, and it's different. There was smoke coming from the fireplace though, so they checked it out. Nothing there. No body. Just a smoldering fire and a still in the back. </p><p>There's no fire buring now. <br/><br/>He takes two jars of moonshine. They look how he remembered - like water, innocent. He thinks two jars is more than enough. He almost puts one back - she doesn't need to get plastered, she just wants a drink - but in the end he brings it so that he won't have to go back to the still. It's different from his dad's one - bigger. Daryl can still remember his first drink, knocking into it when he puked, disrupting the works, Merle laughing at him and trying to get him to clean up before Dad came home, before he saw...<br/><br/>"That's it?" Beth asks. Her eyes are fixed on the booze and she's frowning. "It just looks like water."<br/><br/>"It ain't," Daryl grunts. "S'moonshine." He slides it over to her. She picks up the jar and unscrews the top. Sniffs it. Grimaces. "What?"<br/><br/>"Nothing. It's just -" She looks at it uncertainly. "My dad always said bad moonshine can make you go blind."<br/><br/>"So don' swig it straight from the jar," Daryl mumbles, and he finds her a glass. Blows the dust out of it. Going blind was the least of his worries when his dad got into it. "Ain't like there's nothin' worth seein' out there anyway."<br/><br/>Beth nods. Watches as he pours a shot into a glass. Takes a sip. Her whole face twists - like the time he and Carl got Judith to lick a lemon. "That's the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted."<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs uncomfortably. "Booze don't taste good." He watches as she takes another sip. Something starts to curl up in his belly. "Second rounds better."<br/><br/>"Two's good," he says, watching her pour another. Fuck, what if he just turned Hershel's kid into a drunk, what if - <br/><br/>"This one's for you," she says, and she pushes it over. <br/><br/>"Naw. M'good." The smell of it is so familiar it makes him want to duck his head and look for his dad. Daryl wonders if he'd hear him, if he listened. Hear Merle laughing in the next room, getting lit with his friends, hear his dad doing target practice at the walls. Something like longing fills him. He knew exactly where he was back then. He knew where he belonged and he knew it'd probably always be that way. And now he doesn't know anything. <br/><br/>"Come on," she says, pouring. It's too generous a pour. "Don't make me drink alone. You can't have had that many drinks before all this. You're younger than me."<br/><br/>"Somebody oughta keep watch." </p><p>"So what - you're like my chaperone now?" Beth says, but she's smiling and she holds out the glass. "Come on, Daryl. Let's just be stupid teenagers for once." He doesn't take the glass. "Please."<br/><br/>It's the please that does it. The please and the fact she looks so alone, in her stained yellow shirt, sitting in a shitheap of a cabin like the one he grew up in, like she doesn't know where she fits anymore either, except with him. He takes the glass and holds it in his hand. It looks innocent. Like water. <br/><br/>It's not. <br/><br/>"Gotta secure this place first," he says, and puts the glass down. Ain't even a real glass - it's plastic, like the kind from the dollar store they got after the fire, as something temporary. But they never upgrades from those. "Jus' - a minute."<br/><br/>Beth slumps back and cradles the cup to her. <br/><br/>"Don' - I'll drink it," he says quickly, and she looks up at him. "Jus' - not till we're settled."<br/><br/>He's boarding up the windows when Beth finds the ashtray. <br/><br/>"Who'd walk into a store and walk out with this?"  It's overflowing with butts and shaped like a lady's bra. Beth is laughing, loose from the moonshine, and it loosens something in Daryl too, even though he hasn't had a drink yet. Maybe she's okay. Maybe she's a happy drunk. He'd heard of them but never seen one before. She's little anyway. He'll be all right. Even if she ain't a happy drunk. <br/><br/>He'll be all right. And she needs this.<br/><br/>"My dad, tha's who," he says, tapping the last board into the window. Maybe that's not fair - he can't remember how the ash bucket had ended up in the cabin, just that it'd always been there. Beth stills a little, looking at him, and Daryl shrugs. "He usedta have it on top of the TV set, use it as target practice, after my mama died." </p><p>"He shot things inside of your house?" Beth asks uncertainly. <br/><br/>"It was just a buncha junk anyway. Weren't like a real house or nothin'," Daryl says. "We - our house burned down in a fire when I was little. We moved up to his huntin' cabin till we could figure things out. An' then we just - stayed." He looks around. "S'how I knew what this place was. That shed out there? My dad had one behind our cabin." He tries not to think about it. As if summoned by bad thoughts, he hears the low growl of a walker. Beth is up quick - not sloppy. Hand on her knife. Daryl peeks at the guy outside the window. <br/><br/>For a second, he wonders if he'll see his dad or Merle out there. <br/><br/>But it's just whoevers cabin this was - stained flannel, rotting beer belly. Daryl eases back. <br/><br/>"Should we get it?" he hears Beth asking, and he shrugs. <br/><br/>"He keeps makin' noise, maybe. But it's just one. Maybe just wait it out."<br/><br/>"Well. I guess this place is secure now," Beth says. And she holds out the moonshine. <br/><br/>Daryl hears the walker behind him. Feels the walls of the cabin close, too close around him. <br/><br/>Takes a drink.</p><hr/><p>He had never drank like this before - like he was trying to get drunk. Beth hasn't either, but she's figuring it out best she can. <br/><br/>"I thought you said you've drank before," Beth giggles, two pink patches in her cheeks. Her voice is even slower, her accent like syrup sliding around the words. Daryl shrugs.<br/><br/>"Din't say I'd played games with it," he says, chewing on a thumbnail. <br/><br/>"It's easy," she says again. "First I say something I've never done, and if you have done it, you drink. And if you haven't, I drink. Then we switch."</p><p>"Ain't never seen nobody need no game to get lit." He's eyeing the levels in the jars.</p><p>"Wait - we startin'?" She acts like she's going to take a drink, and Daryl gnaws harder on his thumb, watches her.<br/><br/>"How you even know this game?" Daryl's been going slow, maybe one sip for every four of hers, hoping she won't notice, but he can feel it starting to slosh around in his head now, around his eyes. <br/><br/>"My friends used to play it, at parties. I watched." She sounds wistful. Daryl imagines her friends - probably all clean like her, long hair, church girls. The parties were probably in some girls bedroom, all pink and frills, and there hadn't been any boys around. Just girls getting drunk and braiding each other's hair, drinking Boones Farm. Her sitting on the side, sipping a coke, watching with yearning. He wonders what it would be like to have her life. <br/><br/>It doesn't matter, he guesses. She doesn't have it anymore. </p><p>"Okay, I'll start. Never have I ever - shot a crossbow." She looks at him expectantly. "So now you drink."<br/><br/>He frowns at her. "Ain't much of a game."<br/><br/>"That was a warm up! To teach you the rules! Now you go." Beth splays her hands on the table, like she's bracing herself. "Hit me."<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. Takes a sip. Looks around. Can't think of anything. "I'unno." He and Beth haven't even lived the same life. He wants to think of something she's done that he has too, so that he'll have to drink - not because he wants to drink but because he likes Beth like this, tipsy and silly, and he doesn't want to see what happens when she crosses the line over to mean. Because everyone does, always. <br/><br/>"Just say the first thing that pops into your head," Beth urges. <br/><br/>"Uh - I ain't never been outta Georgia," he says uncertainly. <br/><br/>"Really?" Beth asks, eyebrows raised. "Never?"<br/><br/>His shoulders twitch into a shrug. "Just said, din't I?"<br/><br/>"Okay, good one." Beth takes a swig. A generous one. He watches her, the pale line of her throat, swallowing. "Never have I ever - been drunk before." <br/><br/>She looks expectantly at him, and he grips the cup. <br/><br/>"You said you'd drank before!"<br/><br/>"Din't say I'd got drunk," he says, but he takes a swig. He doesn't want her drinking anymore. He'd been around enough drunk people he guessed, that must have rubbed off on him. He hates this game all of a sudden, hates it. Like every second of every day wasn't enough to tell him that he wasn't good enough to be around this girl. <br/><br/>"Your turn!" she chirps, like this is fun. <br/><br/>"I ain't -" he says, and he looks around. He can't think, his brain fuzzy and slow and the scent of the moonshine all around them making him twitch. "Uh - I ain't never been on vacation."<br/><br/>"What about camping?" Beth jumps on. <br/><br/>Daryl shakes his head. "Wadn't for fun or nothin'. Just what I had to learn. To hunt." It had felt like a vacation sometimes though - out in the woods, the quiet, the leaves. A break from the cabin and his life and the noise. <br/><br/>"Your daddy teach you?" Beth asks, her voice soft. She'd never really interacted with Will - she'd seen him in the cell, maybe, she'd seen him steal Daryl and Michonne, she'd seen them come back without him. She knows his dad is dead and Daryl knows that voice. She wants to talk to him, about having dead dads, about Hershel. He won't. He can't. His dad being gone and Hershel being gone are two separate things. so far apart in experience it's the difference between night and day. Between good and evil. He shouldn't miss his dad. And he doesn't, mostly. <br/><br/>He shouldn't miss Hershel either. Hershel wasn't his dad or his grandpa or anything. Daryl didn't have no claim to him. And he's the fault Hershel is dead. He shouldn't be allowed to feel anything. <br/><br/>He grunts. Beth reads something into that, because then she's picking up the glass and drinking. <br/><br/>He wonders what a family vacation with Hershel would be like. Her and Maggie and Shawn, Shawn of the dirt bike, playing on some beach somewhere. He can't picture Hershel in a bathing suit, without his suspenders. There's a snatch of something in his head, like a dream, but he can't remember it. </p><p>"Never have I ever -" and suddenly he hates that voice, hates those words, hates the years with Hershel Beth had, hates himself for hating Hershel's daughter, for being jealous of a girl whose daddy he'd killed as certain as if he'd been the one holding the sword. Beth tilts her head, thinking, and it reminds him of Hershel's head hanging over, his neck, the blood - </p><p>"Never have I ever -" Beth says again, squinting. "Um - been in trouble." <br/><br/>Daryl flinches at that. It's the moonshine smell, it's the thought of Hershel, it's not missing his dad but needing him, sometimes, needing him to come and whup Daryl good so that he can start making up for all the shit he's done. <br/><br/>"Or I mean - not like that!" she says. She's blushing and Daryl has no idea why. "I just meant - like in school or whatever, or - I mean I've obviously been in trouble for like, skipping chores or stuff, but not real trouble, not like sent to the principal's office or like, with the law or anything -"<br/><br/>Daryl's whole life is trouble. <br/><br/>"Like I've been in trouble with my dad for dumb stuff, but not like, real trouble."<br/><br/>What's it like to believe that being in trouble with your dad isn't real?</p><p>He drinks and it burns his throat and he feels the jar in his hand, hears the liquid sloshing around in it, and he rears back and throws it against the wall. <br/><br/>It smashes into a million pieces. The smell of moonshine is everywhere, in his skin, and he feels himself losing it, feels himself getting angry -</p><p>"I - Daryl, stop, they'll hear you!"<br/><br/>He doesn't care who hears him. If his dad won't come and tar him, if Shane won't come and have a little talk, if he's alone out here, then maybe one walker is as good as another, maybe - </p><p>He's drunk, he realizes, his head spinning. He's drunk and something bad is going to happen, something bad always does, something -</p><p>"Daryl, quit it!" Beth is saying, and fine, maybe it doesn't need to be a walker, Beth is little but he's seen her. She's strong, she might not be able to whup him in a fair fight but nothing about this world is fair and Daryl's not going to argue with her. He just has to get her mad enough -<br/><br/>"S'my turn," he snarls, and Beth looks a little frightened. <br/><br/>"We don't have to play, I'm sorry, I just - I thought it'd be fun -"<br/><br/>Daryl doesn't know how to have fun. <br/><br/>"Never have I ever," he says mockingly, and he sees Beth flinch. Come on, he thinks, get angry, come on - "Never had a pet pony." He remembers the barn, Nellie, her teeth nipping at his hand when he fed her and apple, Hershel stroking her nose. "Never got nothin' from Santa Claus." Beth's mouth is open and her eyes are like too wide marbles and Daryl wonders how much it'll take to get her to give him what he's asking for. What he needs. "Never relied on anyone to feed me before, never relied on anyone for protection!" Beth looks at him and blinks, her eyes filling with tears, and her eyes look like Hershel's and Daryl wants to scream. So he does. "Hell, I don't think I've ever relied on anyone for anythin'!"<br/><br/>"Stop," Beth says, quiet by firm. She's clutching her glass in one hand like it will protect her, but it won't. It's what makes things go bad and she's too much of a dumb bitch to see it. <br/><br/>"Never - never sung out in front of a big group in public like everythin' was fun, like people lookin' at me was some big game," he snarls. He remembers Hershel's face, illuminated by fire, soft as he watched his daughter sing. Pride, Daryl thinks. Pride and love and care. Daryl'd never had that. <br/><br/>"Never hurt myself lookin' for attention," he hisses, and Beth stands up at that. This is it, he thinks, he did it, she's gonna smack him. He won't fight back, he won't do anything, he'll take it, he'll take it all, even if it's just words she'll throw at him, he'll take it. </p><p>But then the walker is banging against the door and fine. That's fine too. He'll take that as well, he'll take whatever the world throws at him, and he'll always come through, more broken than before and nobody to put the pieces back together. </p><p>"Daryl don't -" he hears Beth saying, but he's outside the door with his bow before she can stop him. <br/><br/>He pins the walker to a tree like a butterfly to paper. It doesn't look like his dad or Merle. But it's close enough. <br/><br/>He doesn't get close enough to get bit. He ain't stupid. Beth's relying on him to protect her, he can't go dying, he just needs to get punished enough that he can breathe again -</p><p>Beth shouldn't rely on him anyway. All he does it lose people and get them killed. It's all he can do.<br/><br/>He's hitting the walker now, with his fists, but the walker isn't landing any good blows. Which just makes Daryl madder, just makes him - </p><p>"Daryl, stop!"<br/><br/>He slams his fist into the things bloated stomach, into it's ribs, hears them crack. <br/><br/>"Just kill it! Stop!"<br/><br/>And then her knife jabs into the things head, once, and it just hangs there, limp, lifeless. <br/><br/>Gone. <br/><br/>He turns around at her, furious but ready. This is it, this is where it comes. He's no good, he's trash, he's always known it but somehow the people at the prison forgot, they saw what they wanted to see. Now Beth understands, this is what he came from and this is what he's going to, trash and dirt all the way down. <br/><br/>Hershel should never have relied on him. <br/><br/>"Don't ever do that again," Beth is saying. Her eyes are still bright but she looks mad, finally, finally. "It's not a game, it's not sport. If anyone found my dad -"<br/><br/>He never went back for Hershel. Hershel's head might still be there, in the field, beard stained with blood, growling, trying to snap, to bite -</p><p>"Don't! That ain't remotely the same!" he snarls. </p><p>"Killing them isn't supposed to be fun," she yells back at him. The pleasant flush of her cheeks from drinking is red now. Hit me, he thinks at her. Come on, hit me. But she doesn't. She just looks at him, mad, disappointed, Hershel's eyes staring out of her face -</p><p>"What do you want from me girl, huh?" he yells. What does she want from him? He's not better than this, he's nothing. Hershel and Carol thought he was something but they're gone and that's that, this is all that's left -</p><p>"I want you to stop acting like you don't give a crap about anything!" He gives a crap. He gives so much, he gave his whole self over to that fucking prison and it's gone, it's ashes and smoke, it's a dream -<br/><br/>"Like nothing we went through matters, like none of the people we lost meant anything to you!"<br/><br/>The people weren't lost. They were gone and it was Daryl's fault and why didn't she understand that?<br/><br/>"It's bullshit!" she screams, her voice breaking, and he remembers Carl at the farm, swearing at Shane for the first time, his voice brave. <br/><br/>"That what you think?" he asks. She thinks he doesn't feel anything? Well, he doesn't. He won't let himself. It's his fault any of this happened. He doesn't get to be sad. <br/><br/>"That's what I know," she says, and Daryl misses the certainty of knowing where the next punch would come from, of knowing what the consequences were to breaking the rules. When the consequences were taken out of his own skin, not out of innocent people. Not out of Hershel. </p><p>"You don't know nothin' -" he starts, and she interrupts him. <br/><br/>"I know you look at me and you just see another dead girl," she yells back at him. She's so wrong. She's not dead. She's alive. She's alive and she's good. <br/><br/>It doesn't mean she'll stay that way. <br/><br/>"I'm not Michonne, I'm not Maggie, I'm not Carol -"<br/><br/>He flinches at her name. Beth doesn't notice. <br/><br/>"I've survived and you don't get it 'cause I'm not like you or them." She's not like him. She's better. "But I've made it! And you don't get to treat me like crap just because you're afraid."<br/><br/>"I ain't afraid of nothin'," Daryl hisses, and it's the biggest lie he's ever said. He's afraid he'll get Beth killed too, he's afraid he'll really be the last one standing, like Bob, a mess of bodies in his wake and him, alone, forever, killing or getting people killed - </p><p>He's afraid no one is ever going to punish him like he deserves and no one is going to stitch him up and no one is going to brush his hair out of his eyes ever again. <br/><br/>Beth's face is ugly as she looks at him. "I remember," she throws out there, her eyes narrowed. "When that little girl came out of the barn?<br/>After my mom?" Sophia, her tiny feet dragging in the dirt, the mess that was left of her shoulder, her eyes - "You were like me." He wasn't. Because it wasn't her fault her mom was dead. <br/><br/>Sophia was his fault. It's all his fault. He doesn't understand why she won't just come out and say it. That's what they're talking around, isn't it? <br/><br/>"And now, God forbid you ever let anybody get too close -"<br/><br/>"Too close, huh?" he snaps. "You know all 'bout that. You lost two boyfriends, y'can't even shed a tear!" <em>President Dixon,</em> Zach says in his head. He remembers Hershel's stupid farmhand, his face, but his name is gone. Soon all the names will be gone. Even Hershel. And Carol. "Your whole fam'ly's gone and all you can do is go out looking for hooch!" That's not what Hershel would have wanted. <br/><br/>"Screw you," she says fiercely, "You don't get it -"<br/><br/>"Naw, you don' get it! Everyone we know is dead!"<br/><br/>The words burst out of him like something enormous, leave fire licking in it's wake. <br/><br/>"You don't know that!"<br/><br/>"Might as well be, 'cause y'ain't never gon' see 'em again!" Daryl yells back, and now it's his voice that's cracking. "Rick. Y'ain't never gon' see Maggie again -"<br/><br/>"Daryl, just stop -" she says, and she puts her hands on him and finally, finally, finally - </p><p>But she's not hitting him or scratching him, she's not doing anything, just trying to hold him, her hands on his arms, and he can't take it, he pulls away. <br/><br/>"Governor pulled right up to our gates," he says, and he's crying now, his face wet with tears and snot and sweat from the booze. "I shouldn't a stopped looking. I gave up, that's on me."<br/><br/>"Daryl -" Beth is saying, and she's crying too, she's touching his arm again, like Carol, and he flinches away, Why doesn't she understand, why doesn't she - <br/><br/>"And your dad," he says, and Beth stills behind him. "Maybe - I coulda done somethin'. I coulda -"<br/><br/>And then her whole body is thrown into him and here it comes, here it comes, here it - </p><p>But she's just holding him. He feels her pressing against his back, a warm weight, remembers Hershel that night at the farm, running cool fingers over his scars. He feels her chest against him, heaving up and down, and her face is against his neck and he feels her tears too, trickling there. <br/><br/>It ain't right. He shouldn't let her hold him like this, shouldn't make her comfort him. But it's all too much all of a sudden. It's so much. <br/><br/>So he doesn't move. They just stand there together, fit into each other. <br/><br/>Crying like it'll bring Hershel back. </p><p>Even though they know it won't.</p><hr/><p>They perch up on the porch that night. Daryl's watching for walkers, bow next to him. Beth just seems wrung out, like a dishrag. She's sprawled across from him, the last of the moonshine next to her. She's looking at the stars. <br/><br/>"I get why my dad stopped drinking."<br/><br/>Daryl looks at her. "Y'feel sick?" He'd gotten her water before, but maybe not enough. They hadn't eaten much, just the rattler earlier. He remembers puking everywhere, Merle's hand on his back. Maybe he should get that bucket -<br/><br/>But she just shakes her head. "Nope. I wish I could feel like this all the time. That's bad."<br/><br/>"You're lucky you're a happy drunk." He wonders what kind of drunk Hershel was. Can't see it.</p><p>"Yeah, I'm lucky. Some people can be real jerks when they drink." He steels himself, but sees the glint of her even teeth in the darkness. She's teasing him. </p><p>"Yeah. M'dad was." He thinks about earlier, the shouting, the screaming. "I am." He looks at the stars. The trees are thick overhead. He can't see the Big Dipper. He catches the side of Orion, maybe, if he squints. "You're lucky," he says again. Hears Carol's voice, talking to Sophia. <em>Pretty lucky.</em> "Have a dad like yours."<br/><br/>"I know," Beth says simply. She closes her eyes. Rests her head against the support of the porch. "I miss him."<br/><br/>"Yeah," Daryl says. <br/><br/>"You miss your dad?"<br/><br/>She's looking at him again, and he looks away. Shrugs. "He weren't a good person or nothin'."<br/><br/>"He was still your dad."<br/><br/>"Wished he wasn't, a lotta the time." He digs his knife into the side of the porch, picking a big hole. He did that at home, his dad would have tarred him. At the prison, Hershel would have said something about respecting their home.</p><p>But his dad is gone. Hershel is gone. They have no home. And this place is nothing. <br/><br/>"Wished I'd had a dad like yours," he says suddenly. He doesn't look up. Doesn't want to see her face. "Somebody worth missin'." He digs it harder, feels the wood splinter under his knife. "Nobody ever - stitched me up before." He wants to explain what he means, that it wasn't just stitches, needles through skin, but he doesn't have any words left. <br/><br/>"He said you were gonna be a good man."<br/><br/>Daryl scoffs. "Ain't had no plans 'fore all this. Turn sixteen, drop out, go live with Merle. Never see my dad again. Get some job at a gas station or a grocery store. Prob'ly wouldn't a been able to keep it. Merle never could. Prob'ly just run drugs for Merle and his gang." He looks at Beth. "He ain't - I ain't never gonna be a good man like Hershel. Ain't in me." He thinks of how mean he turned when he drank. "Ain't in my family."<br/><br/>"We're family," Beth says quietly. Daryl shakes his head. <br/><br/>"Daryl. He - he loved you. He said you were -"<br/><br/>"Don't," he says roughly. He can't hear it. Not now. Maybe not ever. "Please don't."<br/><br/>He says the please for Hershel. <br/><br/>Beth goes quiet for a minute. "You miss your brother? Merle?"<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. "He ain't much better'n my old man," he mumbles. "But he never laid a hand on me. Yeah. I miss him."<br/><br/>"I miss Maggie." Daryl does too suddenly, painfully - her brown head next to Glenn's black one, the two of them standing in the prison chapel. <em>The longest night of the year is nothing with love like yours to brighten it. </em>"I miss her - bossin' me around." Daryl lets out a tiny laugh, not more than a breath. "I miss my big brother Shawn." He tries to imagine Shawn - riding his dirt bike with a little blonde girl clinging to his back, giggling. "He was so annoying and overprotective." She lets out a laugh of her own and he wonders what she's seeing. "And my dad."<br/><br/>Daryl looks at her. Wonders what she sees of Hershel. Of his life before. <br/><br/>"I thought - I mean, I hoped he'd just live the rest of his life in peace. You know?" He imagines Hershel in the stables. Currying the horses. "I thought Maggie and Glenn would have a baby, and he'd get to be a grandpa." He remembers Judy sitting on Hershel's knee, him bouncing her slowly, a hand on either side, her toothless gurgle of joy. " And we'd get to have birthdays and holidays and summer picnics -" It's beautiful, the life she's giving Hershel. It should have been his. "And he'd get really old. And it'd happen, but. It'd be quiet." He remembers the noise, the hacking wetness of the sword biting into Hershel's neck, Maggie's scream. "It'd be okay. We'd be there, all of us. You too. He'd be surrounded by people he loved." <br/><br/>Daryl can't say anything. He closes his eyes so he doesn't see Beth's face when she says it. But he can hear the recrimination in her voice. "That's how unbelievably stupid I am."<br/><br/>"Y'ain't," he mumbles. Opens his eyes. She's looking at him, her pale skin almost glowing in the darkness. "That's how it shoulda been."<br/><br/>"I wish I could just - change," she says. <br/><br/>"Y'did," he says. Because Beth could have cut her wrists a million times, could have thrown herself into a walker, could have stayed in the prison. But she didn't. <br/><br/>She was tough.</p><p>"Not enough. Not like you. It's like - you were made for how things are now."<br/><br/>Strangely, it hurts to hear her say in. He shrugs. "I'm just - used to it. Things bein' ugly." He looks at the cabin, it's stained walls. "Growin' up like this. People hurtin' people. Ain't nothin' new."<br/><br/>"But you got away from it," Beth says, and he wonders how she says it with a straight face, after today. After how he'd acted. </p><p>"I din't," he grunts. <br/><br/>"You did," Beth says insistently. <br/><br/>He just shrugs. He'll never get away from this. He'd thought there, for a minute, in the prison, after his dad died, that maybe - but he can't. This is who he is, blood and bone. He'll never get away from it. <br/><br/>He wishes he could change too. <br/><br/>He jumps when she puts her hand on his. "You did." Her eyes are so blue. "You - you're more than this, Daryl. You're going to be the last one standing. I know it."<br/><br/>The thought makes him sick. <br/><br/>"You too," he says instead. "You'n'me. Last two left."<br/><br/>"Thought you said you shouldn't rely on other people for things."<br/><br/>He looks at her. "Y'can - y'can rely on me," he says awkwardly. <br/><br/>It's a mistake the second he says it. She can't rely on him. No one can. Look what happened to Hershel, to Carol. To Sophia. He can't protect anybody. All he knows is how to get out of things with his own skin. <br/><br/>But she's his skin now. She's part of him, she's got to be. She's going to make it. They'll make it together. <br/><br/>Because Daryl doesn't know if he can make it alone. </p><p>"We gotta stay who we are," Beth says finally. "Not who we were." He thinks of that ratty kid, scabbed knuckles, scabbed back, dirty and hungry and practically feral. He wonders who Beth thinks of. "Places like this? You have to put it away."<br/><br/>Daryl nods. Feels the splintered wood of the porch under his hands. "What if you can't?" he asks. His voice is small in the darkness. </p><p>"You have to," Beth says fiercely. "Or it'll kill you."<br/><br/>"Us," Daryl says. Because they're a team. They've got to be. <br/><br/>Beth grins at him. The sadness is etched on her face, in her eyes, but in that moment she seems impossibly young. <br/><br/>"We should burn it down," she says. <br/><br/>And they do.</p><hr/><p>"My first arson," Beth says dreamily. They should have waited till morning, used the shelter for the night. "It's not shelter," Beth said when he brought that up. <br/><br/>They splash the place with the rest of the moonshine. He leaves the cash in there, the jewelry. He doesn't need it. It won't do him any good. <br/><br/>He doesn't need any of this anymore. <br/><br/>Beth uses one of the stacks of cash to toss the flame in and the whole place goes up. <br/><br/>Beth's eyes are wide, like a kid watching fireworks, and she looks at him and smiles and Daryl wonders what his face looks like. If he looks anything like her. <br/><br/>She's giving the cabin the finger and Daryl thinks it's almost cute - like earlier, when she'd tried to flip him off. She nudges him, and he doesn't know why at first, but then he gets it. <br/><br/>He joins her. Flipping the bird. And then they turn and go. </p><p>The smoke and the crackle of flames stays with him the rest of the night. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Alone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They're a team. Daryl gets that now. And while Beth can trust him, to have her back, if he isn't around, she's gotta be able to fend for herself. <br/><br/>So he teaches her what he knows. It's not much, but it's something. <br/><br/>In some ways, it's a lot. </p><p>Beth is a good student. He should have known she would be. She listens to him seriously, her eyes following his hands as her shows her how to load the crossbow, how to shoot it. He's surprised she doesn't take out that damn notebook and take notes. But she's smart. She's got a good memory. She doesn't need notes. <br/><br/>Although one night, when they've camped out in an abandoned car, he wakes up and sees her sitting up in the backseat, squinting in the light of the moon, scribbling something in the notebook with a pen she found in the glovebox. He just closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep. She deserves secrets as much as anybody. <br/><br/>They haven't talked about Hershel since they left the cabin. They don't need to. It feels like he's there behind them, dogging every step. Be kind, Daryl thinks. He doesn't know how to be kind, how to take care, but he's trying. He's really trying. <br/><br/>They practice tracking every day. Keep moving. One night, camped out in someone's summer cabin - someone fancier than the last place, with high quality vacation clothes and dust coating every surface, board games and puzzles neatly shelved by their entertainment system - Beth asks, "Do you think we should stop moving?"<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. "Why? You want to?"<br/><br/>"No."<br/><br/>"Then we won't."<br/><br/>Beth nods. "I know you think - " she starts, but then she shakes her head. "Let's just. Keep moving. We don't need to stop just yet."<br/><br/>Stop looking, she means. He knows that's part of why she looks so intently, why she listens so close. She's hoping they'll pick up on Maggie's trail somewhere. Glenn's. Hell, she probably wishes she'd find Judith's tracks from her fat little legs crawling around. He doesn't say anything. She's right. They don't need to stop yet. <br/><br/>So they don't stop. They keep moving. </p><p>It's getting colder again. Not real cold - it can't be later than August or September, he thinks, trying to do the math on the road. But it getting cold means he's definitely sixteen now. They take what they can find for layers - sweaters, the fancy flannel Daryl had found in the vacation cabin. "No cutting the sleeves off," Beth scolds jokingly, and he scoffs at her as he shrugs it on. It's soft and warm and it smells like dust and faintly like some long gone aftershave. <br/><br/>They don't find houses often. He's better in the woods, he knows. But it's getting colder. They'll have to find someplace soon. He worries at his thumbnail, looks around. Starts to set their course back for civilization. <br/><br/>He lets Beth take point. Gives her the bow. He feels off balance without it, too light, but it means something to see it in her hands. She's built up her muscles since they started all this. She's holding it steady now, peering down the scope. She still struggles a little drawing back on it, but she's better every day. She'll get there. She frowns.</p><p>"Are we close?"<br/><br/>"Almost done," Daryl says. He can see the disturbance in the leaf litter, the pattern that isn't a patter which means walkers. He waits for her to figure it out. <br/><br/>"How do you know?"<br/><br/>"Signs are all there," he mumbles. "Just gotta know how to read 'em."<br/><br/>"What is it we're tracking?" she asks after a minute. He can see her scowling at the pattern. She can't make sense of it, which makes her mad. Beth likes to know things. Likes order. He almost tells her, but she wouldn't thank him for it. She'd just beat herself up for having to ask. So he just shrugs.</p><p>"You tell me." She shoots him a glare, but it's like a puppy or something. He shrugs at her, hides a grin. "You're the one wanted to learn."<br/><br/>She huffs and squats in the dirt, like she just needs to get closer to it and then it'll tell her everything. She frowns. "Well. Something came through here." Duh. "The pattern is all zig zaggy." He can see the moment the lightbulb goes off in her head, and her smile when she turns to him is blinding. "It's a walker!"<br/><br/>"Maybe it's a drunk," Daryl points out, but he can't quite hide his smile. "We didn't burn all the booze in Georgia."<br/><br/>"I'm gettin' good at this," she says. She looks proud like she won a spelling bee or something. "Pretty soon I won't need you at all."<br/><br/>"Less you're gonna eat walker, wouldn' get ridda me just yet," he says, but he grins. She is getting good. He likes teaching her, he realizes. "Keep on tracking."<br/><br/>She spots the walker first, holds up a hand to stop him. "It's got a gun," she whispers, and he zeroes in on it. They could use that. They have her little lady pistol, but the semis got lost a long time ago, maybe that first day. Wouldn't do any good anyway - too loud when it's just them too. But he'd feel better with a back up. He's doing okay on bolts, but contingencies are what keep you alive. <br/><br/>She's creeping forward, her feet almost silent in those cowboy boots. She's good, he thinks. She's good and it's because of him. He made her good at this. It makes his chest feel warm. </p><p>That's when Beth falls.</p><hr/><p>She almost nails the fucker in the head with the bow, even with her ankle in that trap. <br/><br/>Stupid. He'd forgotten about traps. He hadn't taught her about them. His dad hadn't used them - wasn't sporting, pussy way to hunt. Fucking stupid, he thinks as he stabs the walker in the head, almost an afterthought. Traps weren't meant to rip off legs, just hold them, but she's a girl, not a bear, and if she's hurt, if there's something wrong - </p><p>"Can you move it?" he asks. The trap isn't big - maybe not for bear, maybe for foxes or coyotes. Her boot isn't broken, which gives him some relief. Even the heel is still intact - which is good because they have to run often enough that a broken shoe would be a major liability. </p><p>Beth is biting her lip as she rotates her foot, her ankle. She hisses. "Yeah," she says, her voice tight with pain. "Hurts like hell, but, yeah." She tries to stand up and if he weren't right there, she would have fallen again.</p><p>"Shit," she says. She's started to swear a lot more now, which Daryl thinks is funny sometimes, but not now. <br/><br/>"Can you walk?"<br/><br/>"Not fast." She tries to put her weight on it again. "It's not - I don't think it's broken but ow, ow -"<br/><br/>"Sprained maybe," he says. Shit. "Come on," he mumbles, and he maneuvers himself under her arm, like they're going to run a three legged race against walkers. "We'll getcha somewhere you can rest."<br/><br/>"Where?" Beth asks, taking one limping, hopping step next to him. Her weight leans into him, warm, soft. She doesn't smell good, but she doesn't smell as bad as him either. <br/><br/>He bites his own lip. <br/><br/>"This way," he decides. And he leads her off.</p><hr/><p>They find the graveyard by midday, which is good, because they second they see it, the house in the distance, Beth collapses into a sit. <br/><br/>"C'mon, we're almost there," he says. He's trying to do math - the graveyard looks old, but decently tended. Someone there? Maybe. He checks his bolts automatically, fingers running over them.  <br/><br/>"I just - I need a minute," Beth says, rotating her foot. <br/><br/>"We can take a minute inside. C'mon."<br/><br/>She looks like she's about to cry. "Daryl -"<br/><br/>He swings his bow over onto his front and kneels down a little. "Hop up."<br/><br/>"What - you're going to carry me?" She's looking at him incredulously. "I'm taller than you, Daryl."<br/><br/>He feels the back of his neck flush with embarrassment. "M'still growin'. And ain't like you're heavy. You're skin and bones." He looks around. "C'mon. I can getcha."<br/><br/>She lands on his back heavy and he grunts. He's never given a piggy back before. Hadn't received one for a long time. Not since before his mama died, maybe, Merle swinging him around like a monkey. He shifts, tries to juggle her weight. <br/><br/>"Heavier'n you look," he mumbles as he takes a staggering step forward.<br/><br/>"It's all those squirrels. Put some meat on my bones." He feels her shift behind him. "Daryl, really, I can -"<br/><br/>"Shut up," he says. And he starts making his way to the house. </p><p>She's heavy on his back. He can feel her trying not to be. He doesn't know how that would work. He wonders what his back feels like - can she feel the ridges and lines of the scars? Probably not. He's wearing layers. But the thought of it makes him move faster, if he can. <br/><br/>He has to take a break halfway to the house. That's when she sees the gravestone. <br/><br/>It's a graveyard. There's probably a dozen beloved fathers buried around them. Beloved mothers. Sisters and brothers. All dead and gone a hundred years ago or more. But something about this one makes her stop. <br/><br/>Beloved father. <br/><br/>Hershel has no grave. He never will. If someone finds him, his weakened, snapping head, they'll burn him, probably, or just leave him to rot. Hershel gets no service, no kind words, no Bible passages. He'd earned those things. He'd deserved them. <br/><br/>People don't always get what they deserve. <br/><br/>This isn't Hershel. He knows that. Beth does too. But he yanks up a weed and puts it on the grave anyway. Maybe somewhere, the universe is paying attention. Maybe someone will give Hershel a burial if they find him, or lay flowers on the spot where he died. Maybe flowers will grow there. Maybe Cherokee roses. Maybe someone will do something for Hershel and they won't know why, but it will be because of Daryl. Because Daryl did something for a stranger and now a stranger somewhere will pay Daryl back.<br/><br/>Beth takes his hand after he does it and squeezes. <br/><br/>He squeezes back. <br/><br/>"A'right, git back on," he says. <br/><br/>"I can do it," Beth says. "It's close."<br/><br/>They look at the house. <br/><br/>"Think there are people in there?"<br/><br/>Daryl squints at it. Shrugs. Runs his fingers over his bow, his bolts. <br/><br/>"Dunno," he says. "There are, I'll handle 'em."<br/><br/>"There are still good people, Daryl."</p><p>He shrugs, leans down so she can climb onto him. Braces himself. <br/><br/>"I don't think the good ones survive." <br/><br/>He feels her settle in again on top of him. Grunts. Starts walking. <br/><br/>"We're here," she says quietly. He can feel her breath on his neck. "We're still here."<br/><br/>They are.</p><hr/><p>The inside of the funeral home is quiet and still and it looks like the farm. </p><p>There's wallpaper and hardwood floors and old furniture and it's cared for, which is maybe what makes him think of the farmhouse first. He looks at Beth, wonders if she sees it too, if he should say something. </p><p>At first he thinks the guy in the coffin is the guy who was tending to it, and that feels like a good sign, but when Daryl touches his cheek his fingers come away caked in make up and the skin underneath is leathery and dark. A walker? Or just some embalmed person that never got claimed, laid here and rotted? <br/><br/>He looked peaceful before Daryl scraped his face. He turns away. <br/><br/>There's more in the basement. Daryl looks for signs of self inflicted wounds, opting out. Staying here gets a lot easier if there's nobody coming back for it. But he doesn't find any. These ones are definitely walkers. One of them is halfway done, face half restored and half a rotting mess. Daryl shivers. <br/><br/>"Looks like somebody ran outta dolls to dress up," he mumbles, and Beth looks at him for a long moment. <br/><br/>"It's beautiful," she says softly. "Whoever did this cared. They wanted these people to get a funeral."<br/><br/>He thinks of the only funeral he'd ever been to, his mama's. Thinks of the jerk in the suit leaning down, asking him if he wanted to say goodbye to his mommy. Thinks about outside, putting the flowers on the grave. This guy would have done it for Hershel. Would have taken his head and given it something. <br/><br/>"They remembered these things were people. Before all this. They didn't let it change them in the end." She looks back at him. "Don't you think that's beautiful?"<br/><br/>Daryl looks away first. "C'mon," he says. "Let's get that ankle wrapped."</p><hr/><p>The fridge is empty but the cupboards are full. Fuller than anything Daryl's seen in years. Not just full but organized, curated. All this stuff, someone picked it up because they wanted to eat it. Not just because it was the only thing they could find. <br/><br/>This is how Beth would keep her cabinets, Daryl thinks, looking at them. All lined up and organized. <br/><br/>Then he sees the pig feet and amends. Well. Maybe not exactly like this.</p><p>"Whoa," Beth breathes, and they both are staring at it for a minute. <br/><br/>"Peanut butter'n jelly, diet soda, pigs feet - that's a white trash brunch right there," he mutters. Beth grins at him. <br/><br/>"It all looks good to me." She's picking up cans, just holding them in her hands. <br/><br/>"We'll - we should just take some of it," Daryl says. "It's someone's stash," he defends when Beth looks at him. "They put it here. We'll take what we need, leave the rest." Beth is still looking at him. He hears her stomach grumbling.<br/><br/>"I knew it," she says, and she's smiling at him. "It's like I said. There are still good people. And you're one of them."<br/><br/>He can't stand her looking at him like that, like she knows him, like he's good, so he shoves a fist in a jar of jelly and crams his fingers in his mouth. Slurps. <br/><br/>"Gross!" Beth squeals, and he just grins at her. <br/><br/>"Those pigs feet're mine," he says. <br/><br/>And they set up camp.</p><hr/><p>He leaves her inside with both the guns, her foot propped up on the couch. When she protests, he glares at her. <br/><br/>"Y'strain it more, it'll take longer to heal. Don' be selfish," he snaps, and she closes her mouth and leans back like she's trying to suppress a grin.  <br/><br/>"Fine. Hurray back," she says, and she looks serious again. "I can get to you if you call." <br/><br/>He grunts. "Got my bow. Be fine."<br/><br/>And he sets the trip line. <br/><br/>He wonders if anyone will come. It's quiet here, around the dead. Maybe whoever's been cleaning up walkers will come back, but maybe not. Maybe they can rest here a while. Until Beth's ankle is better, at least. Maybe they can catch a break. <br/><br/>He shouldn't think like that anymore. It never leads anywhere good. </p><p>When he comes back, Beth isn't where he left her, and he almost growls. She's lit candles around the room, and she's sitting at a piano. There's music in front of her and she's playing, but Daryl thinks she isn't using the music. Thinks she just knows it. <br/><br/>Her voice is sweet and clear and he just listens for a moment. But then it feels creepy, like he's spying on her, and so he clears his throat and tries not to be hurt when she jumps. <br/><br/>"It's nailed up tight," he says. He puts his bow down and hops into the coffin. This one is empty. They hadn't had one for his mama - hadn't been enough of her left to bury. It's comfier than he thought it would be. <br/><br/>"What're you doing?"<br/><br/>"Comfiest bed I had in years," he mumbles. <br/><br/>"Really?"<br/><br/>"I ain't kiddin'." There's beds upstairs maybe, but they belong to whoever's been taking care of walkers, and they ain't stealing. They're just here to rest. Daryl doesn't steal for fun. He just takes what he has to. Plus, he ain't gonna share a bed with Beth, and he ain't gonna be separated from her either. <br/><br/>And the coffin is near the piano. <br/><br/>"Whyn't you - you could play some more," he mumbles, surrounded by the white frills of the coffin. He props his hands behind his head, closes his eyes. "If you wanted to. Or, y'know. Sing, or whatever. If you want."<br/><br/>"Thought my singing annoyed you."<br/><br/>He frowns. He'd never said that. "Naw. Jus' - ain't never had a thing like that, y'know. Make people look atcha. For a good thing, I mean. I ain't like nobody lookin' at me." Then he scowls, flips away from her. Stares at the side of the coffin. He didn't mean to say that much. "I don't give a shit, do what you want."<br/><br/>He doesn't turn back when she starts the piano. He waits until he's sure she's looking away. <br/><br/>And when she starts singing, he looks at her. </p><p>He doesn't know when he falls asleep, but he can hear her singing in his dreams.</p><hr/><p>The next day, he gives her a piggy back ride to the kitchen. <br/><br/>"C'mon," he says, grinning at her. "I'm gettin' good at this."<br/><br/>She's laughing, shaking her head. "It's like six feet, I can do it myself -"<br/><br/>"Hey, who taught you trackin'? Gotta pay me back, girl. M'learnin' piggy back rides."<br/><br/>She's still laughing when he hoists her up onto his shoulders, shaking him, and then he's laughing too and they're tipping over onto one side, into a wall - <br/><br/>"Ow!"<br/><br/>Shit, did he hurt her, did he - but she's still laughing and so he finishes it, swings them into the kitchen, drops her onto a chair. <br/><br/>"You need practice," she says, giggling. "Oh, yum."<br/><br/>Daryl'd laid out breakfast before she woke up. He grins at her as she picks up the peanut butter. <br/><br/>"Ain't gonna start with feet? Best way to start your day, balanced breakfast or whatever they say on TV -"<br/><br/>"Ew, Daryl -"<br/><br/>But then there's cans clinging outside and neither of them are laughing anymore. </p><p>It's a dog outside. <br/><br/>Daryl had always wanted a dog. His dad didn't believe in pets, as the fate of the kitten Daryl had tried to rescue bore out. He remembers trying to convince him once that a dog would be different. "He'd be useful," he said. "He could help us hunt, he could sniff out -"<br/><br/>"Boy, I got enough shit on my plate tryin' to feed your worthless ass, ain't gonna waste any energy on a damn dog."<br/><br/>"S'just a damn dog," he yells back to Beth. The dog looks at him warily out of his one eye, and Daryl drops down. His voice, when he speaks, is low and gentle. "Hey, boy. Hey."<br/><br/>But when he reaches out the dog yelps and is gone. Daryl tries not to feel disappointed. He's got enough on his plate keeping Beth fed. He doesn't need another mouth to feed.</p><p>"He wouldn't come in? Beth asks behind him, and he closes the door quick. She's leaning against the stair bannister, trying to see over his shoulder. <br/><br/>"Tol' you to stay back," he says, and Beth looks at him like he's slow. <br/><br/>"Uh, yeah, but Daryl...you said there was a <em>dog</em>."</p><p>Girls. </p><p>They go back and eat. He even gets her to try a pigs foot - her taking the tiniest bite possible, her whole face wrinkling up, shaking her head side to side. <br/><br/>"Naw, naw, can't spit it out! C'mon!"<br/><br/>She finally swallows and takes a huge gulp of cola. When she finishes gulping, she burps, and grimaces. <br/><br/>"Ugh, ew, I can still taste it when I burp - gross -"<br/><br/>"G'wan now, eat up," Daryl says gleeful, his own trotter half gone. "There's starvin' people in the world -"<br/><br/>"Yeah, and I've been one of them, and I still won't eat that! Gross gross gross -"<br/><br/>The rest of the day is quiet. He doesn't need to go out and hunt and Beth shouldn't put weight on her foot. They laze around in the main room - Daryl tries to plunk out something on the piano, Beth tests out the coffin - "It is sort of comfortable!" It's like a Sunday when his dad was on a bender and Merle was out of juvie or jail, lazing around watching TV, eating dry cereal. Too sleepy and too comfortable to have to talk. <br/><br/>It's nice. It's not like those days after the prison fell, when they didn't speak. It's like they don't even have to speak, like they don't need words to say how they feel. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here too.<br/><br/>"I'm gonna leave a thank you note," Beth says that night over dinner. Daryl's eating jelly for dinner. Beth's having peanut butter. Daryl was wondering how a pigs foot would taste with jelly on it when Beth speaks. <br/><br/>"Why?" he asks. <br/><br/>"For when they come back. If they come back. Even if they don't come back, I still want to say thanks." <br/><br/>"No, I mean -" He shrugs, scowls. "Maybe you don't hafta leave that. Maybe - maybe we stick around here for a while." It's quiet and cared for and there's a piano for Beth and the woods are close enough to hunt for a day and come home. The world rolls around his head. Home.</p><p>"They come back, we could make it work," he continues. "They're prob'ly nuts, dressin' up walkers'n'shit, but - don't matter if they're nuts if they ain't mean."<br/><br/>"So you do think there are still good people around."<br/><br/>He scowls, shoves a spoonful of jelly in his mouth. It's sweet. <br/><br/>"What changed your mind?"<br/><br/>He shrugs. Stares at the jelly jar. "You know," he mumbles. <br/><br/>"What?"<br/><br/>He shrugs again, shoves the jar away from him. "I'unno," he says. Peeks up at her through his bangs. "You're still here. Ain'tcha?"<br/><br/>She looks levelly at him. "You too."<br/><br/>"Guess." He wipes his fingers, sticky with jelly even though he used a spoon, on his jeans. <br/><br/>"I've always been the baby. Maggie, Shawn - they were older than me." <br/><br/>"Yeah?" he says uncertainly. "So?"<br/><br/>"So - I think I like it. Having a little brother."<br/><br/>Daryl scoffs. Spits. She wrinkles her nose at him. <br/><br/>"Ew, Daryl, if we're going to stay here you can't just -"<br/><br/>And there's the clatter from outside again. The whimper of the dog.<br/><br/>"I'll get 'im," Daryl says immediately, springing from the table. He snags a pigs foot as he goes. <br/><br/>But it ain't the dog. It's walkers. <br/><br/>A lot of them. <br/><br/>Too many of them. </p><p>The door is the only way in or out. The door is the only way in or out and it's swarming with walkers and - </p><p>Beth throws him the bow and he runs after her. She's doing pretty good on her one gimpy foot. "I'll slow 'em down," he pants. "Go out, go up the road -"<br/><br/>"I'm not leaving you!"<br/><br/>"I'll meetcha!" he says, firing another arrow. Hears it make contact, a squish in the darkness. "Go!"<br/><br/>And she does.</p><p>He's glad Beth isn't there to see it. Killing walker is one thing, but this is a bloodbath. He barricades himself with the dead man in the basement, uses the space it buys him to stab into as many brains as possible. He doesn't have a long enough reach for some of them, so he leaves them and keeps going and when he gets back to them, they're closer. He just goes, eye socket, eye socket, forehead, eye socket, ear -</p><p>It's not enough but it's enough to buy him time and he tears out of there as fast as he can. He can see Beth ahead of him, her blonde ponytail bouncing in the moonlight, and he fixes his eyes on it and follows. It's okay, they're okay, they're moving fast, he's got his bow, everything is going to - </p><p>But then her ponytail disappears and there's tires squealing and a car is pulling away, pulling away with Beth inside and he can't breathe, he can't - </p><p>"Beth! Beth!"<br/><br/>He runs after the car as fast as he can. Leaves the stuff on the ground - the backpack, one lone can of peanut butter rolling out. He's fast when he wants to be - the track coach had tried to get him to go out for the team once, before Daryl cussed him out and got detention. He's fast but not that fast. But he doesn't know what to do other than run. <br/><br/>He's lucky there's a road because he can't see. It's dark and his face is wet with sweat and snot and he runs runs runs until morning. Because maybe they'll stop to get gas, maybe they'll crash, maybe Beth will escape and will come running from the other side to meet him, because maybe - </p><p>But eventually he can't run anymore. He's soaked to the skin and shivering and he can't breathe and the road is splitting. There's two paths and he can't read the ground, the pavement, he can't tell which way the car went. And he can't breathe.</p><p>He falls to his knees on the ground, eyes fixed on the road. </p><p>She's gone. </p><p>She's gone. </p><p>It's the only thing he can think as he struggles to breathe. </p><p>She's gone.</p><hr/><p>He's not sure how long he sits there. His breathing evens out eventually and he knows he should get up, should move, should figure out how to follow her trail. The car took her for something so she's probably still alive. She's tough, she'll stay alive till he finds her. He needs to get up. He needs to go. <br/><br/>But he can't move. <br/><br/>Even when he hears footsteps he can't bring himself to care. They aren't Beth's footsteps, that's all that comes through. And if they don't belong to Beth - </p><p>By the time he realizes it's more than one set, realizes that they're surrounding him, it's too late.</p><p>One guy steps close. Daryl can see the butt of his rifle, his well worn boots. <br/><br/>"Well. What do we have here? You lost, little guy?" <br/><br/>Daryl answers him with a fist to the face.</p><p>The man wasn't expecting him to move quick, maybe wasn't expecting him to move at all. It's probably shock more than anything else that knocks him over. Daryl's got his bow on him in a second, feels the others pointing their own weapons at him. Whatever, he doesn't give a shit, they can take him out and he'll take one of them out because who gives a fuck now, he's alone, the last man standing - </p><p>"Damn it, hold up!" the man on the ground says. <br/><br/>"I'm claiming the crossbow," someone says behind him. <br/><br/>"I'm claiming his ass," someone else says, and there's a moment of laughter. </p><p>"I said hold up," the man on the ground says, and the others quiet. Daryl doesn't take his eyes off him. The man's nose is bleeding, and he touches it. Looks at the blood. <br/><br/>The man just laughs. "Shit. Pretty quick for a kid, ain't you?" He gets to his feet and Daryl knows he should shoot, before the guy can get up, before he can get close, but he just keeps the man in his sights. "How old are you, son? Fourteen?"<br/><br/>"Ain't you son," Daryl growls. "Eighteen."<br/><br/>"Mighty scrawny eighteen," the man says, looking him over. He wipes at his nose again. "A bowman, huh?"<br/><br/>Daryl doesn't say anything. He's got the bow in his hand, that answers the fucking question. <br/><br/>"I respect that.  See, a man with a rifle? He could have been some kind of photographer or soccer coach back in the day, but. A bowman's a bowman through and through." <br/><br/>Daryl thinks about Beth, her hands on the bow, learning to draw it back. <br/><br/>"What you got there, 100 pound draw weight?"<br/><br/>It's 150, but Daryl doesn't say anything. <br/><br/>"I'll be donkey licked if that don't fire 300 feet per second." The man is steady and easy in front of Daryl, even after saying that. The bolt is less than a foot from his face. Daryl could let go, kill him. He could do it. <br/><br/>But if he's dead, he'll never find Beth. And she's waiting for him. <br/><br/>So he holds. Watches the other man. <br/><br/>"I been looking for a weapon like that." <br/><br/>Daryl stiffens. The man wants what he has, the man's gonna take it. But Daryl won't let it go without a fight. <br/><br/>"Course, I'd want one with a bit more ammo and minus the oblongata stains." <br/><br/>The fuck?<br/><br/>"Easy there, tiger. Ain't gonna take your bow. You've claimed it."<br/><br/>The man behind him whines, "Aw, Joe man, c'mon, I claimed it -"<br/><br/>"Shut up, Len," Joe snaps, and the other man is immediately silent. <br/><br/>"You pull that trigger, my boys are going to drop you several times over. That what you want?"<br/><br/>Daryl doesn't move. </p><p>"C'mon, kiddo. Suicide is stupid. Why hurt yourself when you can hurt other people?"<br/><br/>The bow wavers in his hands, and Joe must think that's some kind of decision, because he grins at him. <br/><br/>"Name's Joe," he says. "And you are?"<br/><br/>Daryl holds the gun up for another moment, then lets it drop. Doesn't move his hand too far from the trigger. <br/><br/>But he can't die here. Not until he finds Beth and makes sure she's all right. <br/><br/>"Daryl," he mutters. Joe nods at him. Claps a hand on Daryl's shoulder, hard. Daryl flinches. <br/><br/>"Claimed," Joe says. <br/><br/>And Daryl wonders what the fuck he got himself into.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Us (Part 1)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"You're lucky I claimed you," Joe tells him that evening. The others are off hunting or maybe just off - Joe made it clear he wanted space and they disappeared into the woods like mist. "Dan there, you're a little old for his taste, but times are tough. We gotta take what we can get."<br/><br/>Daryl doesn't say anything. Daryl watches are Joe sets up the perimeter. Barbed wire. Cans for noise. Joe looks at him. <br/><br/>"You don't talk much, do you?"<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. He's sitting with one knee in front of him like a shield, arms wrapped around it tight. His fingers are almost white with pressure.<br/><br/>"Now me, I don't mind a conversation. It's what separates us from animals, right?" He waits. "In a conversation, you respond to a question with an answer." <br/><br/>"Right," Daryl mumbles. He's got his bow still - it's strapped across his back - but if he makes a move on Joe he bets those others'll be back before he can blink, and then he'll be gone. <br/><br/>And he's the only person who can try and find Beth. If he dies, there won't be anyone looking for her. And she deserves to be looked for.</p><p>"Me, I mean, I prefer girls, women, but, you know." Joe's hand skims over Daryl's neck and he feels himself tighten even more. "We take what we can get."</p><p>Maybe it's good Beth is gone. She shouldn't be around these guys, not Joe, not any of them. But if Beth hadn't gone, Daryl wouldn't be with them either. <br/><br/>"Lighten up, kid. It's a fucking joke."<br/><br/>Daryl nods. </p><p>"When someone tells a joke and it's funny, you're meant to laugh."<br/><br/>"Ha," Daryl says tonelessly. The hand on the back of his neck grips hard, and Daryl freezes. <br/><br/>"Now listen. I think you're new here, you don't know the rules, that can be scary, right? I get it. But I don't take lip. From anybody. Understand?"<br/><br/>"Yessir." The hand lets go of him, claps him on the shoulder again, real friendly. <br/><br/>"Hey, you don't need to call me sir. Joe is fine."<br/><br/>"Yeah, Joe."<br/><br/>"There, see? Smart kid." Joe tousles his hair and Daryl flinches. "You know what I think, Daryl? I think once you learn the rules, you're going to be a real valuable member of this group. What do you think?"<br/><br/>"Yeah," he says. "Real valuable."<br/><br/>"Glad we're on the same page." Joe sits next to him. "Loosen up, kid. You're making me tense just looking at you. Settle in. Stay a while."<br/><br/>Daryl lets his hands drop but keeps his knee up. <br/><br/>This is something he's never worried about. His dad would have beat the shit out of anyone who looked at Daryl like that, and then out of Daryl too, for good measure. Merle as his brother meant nobody messed with him. Merle was out of his mind. They set him off, no one knows what will happen. But now he can't stop thinking about it, about Joe's hand, about Dan, who was probably the guy talking about his ass earlier, about the one who wanted his bow. <br/><br/>"Hey," Joe says softly, and his fingers are touching Daryl's chin and he's making Daryl look at him. The blood from his nose is wiped away and the man is looking at him almost kindly. "You don't have to be scared. You're mine here, all right? I don't let anyone mess with what's mine. That's a promise." <br/><br/>Daryl nods. </p><p>"Think you're going to fit in just fine," Joe says. </p><hr/><p>"Here's how it works," Joe says. It's later. The others are back. One of them is cooking meat over the fire - rabbit, maybe. It's making Daryl feel sick. "Going it alone? That ain't an option nowadays. Right, Tony?"<br/><br/>"Right," Tony says immediately. He doesn't look at Daryl. He only looks at Joe.<br/><br/>"Still, it is survival of the fittest. That's a paradox right there? You know what a paradox is, Daryl?"<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. <br/><br/>"Harley, let our new friend know what a paradox is."<br/><br/>"Uh..." Harley says. He looks at Tony, then at the other guy with the regular bow. Len or whatever. "It's - uh -"<br/><br/>"It's stuff that contradicts itself," the guy at the fire says. He hasn't taken his eyes off Daryl since Daryl arrived, even though he's meant to be cooking. He smiles at Daryl. "Like jumbo shrimp. Or, uh -"<br/><br/>"That's an oxymoron, idiot, it ain't a paradox. It's like -"<br/><br/>"I think he gets it," Joe says with steel in his voice. The others stop talking immediately. <br/><br/>"Anyway. It's a paradox. But I laid out some rules of the road to keep things from going Darwin every couple of hours. Keep our merry band together and stress-free. All you got to do is claim."</p><p>Daryl looks at Joe from under his bangs. Joe claimed him. Does that mean Daryl could claim himself? <br/><br/>"Claiming is how we mark our territory," Joe says, and the hand is back on Daryl's shoulder. He squeezes. "Your prey, your bed at night, one word. Claimed." Joe grins at him and squeezes again. "I'll help you out some, till you get the hang of it. Watch." He points to a patch of earth near where Joe's pack sits. "Daryl's gon' sleep there. Claimed."<br/><br/>He turns to Daryl. "Now you try."<br/><br/>Daryl looks around. Doesn't see anything he wants, doesn't know what he's even allowed to have. "Don't gotta claim nothin'," he mumbles. <br/><br/>"Hey now, sure you can think of something. Something you want to keep." <br/><br/>He points at his crossbow. "Claimed." It's barely a whisper.<br/><br/>"Good boy." The smell of the meat cooking is making Daryl's stomach turn over. "Now, seein' as you're such a good boy, I bet this isn't even going to come up. But still. Forewarned is forearmed, right?" Joe leans in close. "What do you think happens if you break the rules?"<br/><br/>A full body spasm goes through Daryl and he wonders if he really will be sick. "Get punished, guess," he says. His mouth feels like cotton.<br/><br/>"Smart boy." Joe doesn't say anything more about what that punishment will look like, and Daryl doesn't ask. He knows. He'll get whupped. <br/><br/>He finds himself, strangely, hoping it's only that.</p><p>"Now, seeing as you didn't claim any food for yourself today, I'll give you a little of mine," Joe says. "But tomorrow on, you feed yourself. You know how to do that, don't you?"<br/><br/>Daryl nods. <br/><br/>"Course you do. Bow like that. Good." Everyone is eating and Joe shoves a chunk of meat into Daryl's hand. It's hot and greasy from the fire and the smell of it makes Daryl want to puke. <br/><br/>But he doesn't waste food. He needs it. Needs the energy. He makes himself eat it. </p><p>And when it's dark and they put the fire out, Daryl lays down next to Joe. Joe slings an arm over him, pins him in. Daryl feels too close, trapped, like he wants to push away and run and take his chances - </p><p>But they're gonna let him hunt. That means they'll have to let him out in the woods with his bow. They can't watch him forever. He'll get away as soon as he can, double back around to the crossroads. Figure out how to find Beth. <br/><br/>He just has to bide his time. </p><p>Joe's arm feels like a brand thrown over him and he tries not to move, not to breathe too deeply, even as Joe starts to snore. <br/><br/>Claimed.</p><hr/><p>He doesn't sleep all night but Joe does. Daryl just stares out. He can see his crossbow, just two hands lengths away. If he needs it, it's right there. If he needs it -</p><p>But then it's morning, the sky going pink and then red and then blue, and everyone is getting up and Joe didn't do anything but yawn and stretch and grin at him. "Sleep well?"<br/><br/>Daryl worries his lip between his teeth. Nods. <br/><br/>"Hungry?"<br/><br/>"Yeah," Daryl mumbles. He looks at Joe, then looks over at his bow. <br/><br/>"Why don't you and Len go out. Try and rustle something up." <br/><br/>Len is the one who wanted the crossbow. He spits when Joe says that. <br/><br/>"Ain't a fuckin' babysitter."<br/><br/>"I'll go," says the man from the night before, the one who'd talked about jumbo shrimp. "I can -"<br/><br/>"You couldn't hunt your way out of a paper bag, Dan," Joe says warningly. Dan. Daryl looks at him again, remembers what Joe said yesterday. Dan grins at him. Daryl looks away. <br/><br/>"Len?" Joe says. And Len gets up, grumbling, grabs his own bow. <br/><br/>"You comin'?" he shouts over his shoulder. <br/><br/>"Go on," Joe says. "Bring back something good."<br/><br/>So he goes.<br/><br/></p><hr/><p>He thought he'd slip away from Len the first chance he got but they've been creeping around for an hour and a chance hasn't come.<br/><br/>"Don't even think about it," Len says when he catches Daryl looking consideringly off in one direction. Daryl blinks - that time he genuinely was just looking for tracks - and scowls.<br/><br/>"You're claimed, shithead. Ain't nothin' you can do about it now but deal with it. We'll see how much longer you last than the last one."<br/><br/>"What last one?" Daryl asks, even though Len is probably talking shit, even though Len just wants to freak him out. <br/><br/>"Man, I don't know. Little'uns don't last too long out here. Right?"<br/><br/>He thinks of the little boot he and Beth found, and Judith. He scowls. <br/><br/>"You try and take what's Joe's, y'ain't gonna like what happens."<br/><br/>"Ain't belong to him," Daryl spits before he thinks it's probably a bad idea. Len just laughs though. <br/><br/>"Boy, that's where you're wrong."<br/><br/>They see the rabbit at the same time, but Daryl's arrow hits him first. <br/><br/>"Claimed," the other man says quickly. Len goes over and scoops up the rabbit. Looks at Daryl challengingly.<br/><br/>Daryl scowls. But looks away. Looks down at the ground instead - tries to find evidence of anything else out here. <br/><br/>"Hell, maybe you will last longer'n the last one."</p><hr/><p>He gets a squirrel and Joe claims half so Daryl's gnawing on his half as they start walking for the day. It's charred black on the outside and almost raw within but Daryl doesn't care. Joe walks next to him, not saying anything. They pick up on the train tracks that they'd seen the day before and they follow them. Easiest tracking Daryl's ever done. <br/><br/>It's good for him too. He lost Beth at the crossroads with the train tracks. When he gets away, he can just slip back around, find the tracks again, and - </p><p>And what? Be right back where he started. <br/><br/>"Whatcha thinking?" <br/><br/>He stills the flinch, but not quick enough. He hadn't forgotten Joe was next to him, but he wasn't expecting Joe to talk to him again. He darts a look over. <br/><br/>"Nothin," he says, and Joe frowns at him. <br/><br/>"Maybe I left some things out last night when I was explaining the rules," Joe says, and Daryl braces himself. This is how it always goes. They tell you one thing then they fuck you up with another, smack you over shit you've done a thousand times because now it's against the rules. He knows that game and so he tenses up, but the only contact is Joe's hand going over his shoulder again. Daryl's shoulder tingles from the touch.<br/><br/>"Remember what I said last night?"<br/><br/>"Gotta claim," Daryl says. <br/><br/>"That's right. And what happens if you don't?"<br/><br/>"Get punished."<br/><br/>"Right again. Smart boy." The compliment makes Daryl feel filthy. "We follow the rules, everything is fine. We claim. If you steal, you keel." Joe smiles at him, his hand heavy on Daryl's shoulder. "Sounds a little funny, don't it?"<br/><br/>Daryl forces a laugh. <br/><br/>"Well, nobody's laughing when something goes missing. And you don't lie." <br/><br/>Oh. Daryl grits his teeth. <br/><br/>"That's a slippery slope indeed. Isn't that right?"<br/><br/>"Yeah," Daryl says. They walk in silence for a second. Then Daryl decides it's worth asking, even if the answer is one he doesn't like. "What happens if you break 'em?"<br/><br/>"Oh, you catch a beatin'." Joe's tone of voice is light and his hand is so, so heavy. "The severity of which depends on the offense and the general attitude of the day." So they'll whup you as hard as they feel like it. "But I'm sure that won't happen to a good kid like you."<br/><br/>"No," Daryl says. <br/><br/>"So, I'll ask you again. Whatcha thinkin' about?" <br/><br/>"I - just, um. 'Bout that, I guess."<br/><br/>"What?"<br/><br/>"Um. Gettin' punished." Daryl's not sure where it comes from, but he knows he's not telling Joe anything about Beth, not even the fact she exists. And it's true that what little portion of his brain wasn't trying to figure out how to escape was worrying over what the fuck Joe would do to him when he got mad. <br/><br/>"Really?"<br/><br/>Daryl can hear the skepticism in his voice. "My dad - uh, had a lotta rules too." This is only partially true - his dad had had rules, sure, but he wasn't ever particular about how or when he enforced them. The big one was not to piss him off, and Daryl did that plenty. "So guess I was just - uh - wonderin'. S'all."<br/><br/>"I see." They walk in silence for a minute. "Well, Daryl. I'm not your dad."<br/><br/>No. He's not. <br/><br/>"The rules here are few and they are clear. You've heard all of them now. And you won't catch anythin' unless you break them. That's fair, isn't it?"<br/><br/>Daryl nods. <br/><br/>"Fairer than your old man, I bet."<br/><br/>Daryl nods again, hating himself for starting this fucking discussion. <br/><br/>"Yeah. That's right. He dead, your pops?"<br/><br/>"Yeah," Daryl says. <br/><br/>"You kill him?"<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. Then nods. Then looks away. <br/><br/>"Yeah. Thought so." The hand squeezes on his shoulder, friendly. "Killed my old man too."<br/><br/>And then Joe is gone, up near the front, and Len is behind him before Daryl can figure out what the fuck is going on. <br/><br/></p><hr/><p>They stay the night outside again and walk all the next day. Joe doesn't do anything more than touch Daryl - ruffles his hair, squeeze his shoulder, drape an arm over him as he sleeps. Joe's closer to him that night then he was the night before, but he doesn't do anything but sleep. <br/><br/>Daryl looks for an out but he never sees anything and the others watch him close. Harley goes hunting with him the next morning, and fucking Dan tries to escort Daryl to the latrine that afternoon, before Joe gives him a shove. <br/><br/>"You ain't trying to put your hands on my claim, are you?"<br/><br/>Dan pales. "No, no way, Joe, never -"<br/><br/>"Len'll take him." And Len does, sneering and grinning as Daryl takes a shit, making Daryl hand him his coat so he can't even use the length of it to hide. <br/><br/>"Don' wanna get shit on it," Len sneers, and Daryl just takes a shit and tries not to think.<br/><br/>That night they stay in an old railroad depot, the others claiming shit left and right. Daryl doesn't even try. He knows he'll end up next to Joe anyway. He wonders if being inside will change anything. <br/><br/>They're backed into one corner, a little ways off from the others, and Daryl is taking off his jacket to use as a pillow when he realizes his picture is missing. <br/><br/>It's not his, he knows that. It's Carol's. It's the one he took from Carol's cell before the prison fell, folded to shit, and he'd kept it pinned inside his jacket since then, pinned with the white flower pin he'd gotten her. He'd never lose it, never, never. He's searching frantically, turning the jacket over and over, taking off his other layer, in case it fell, in case it - <br/><br/>"What's the matter, tiger?" Joe asks, and Daryl turns around and he flinches. Joe probably took it, Joe - <br/><br/>"No lyin'," Joe says, so Daryl blurts it out. <br/><br/>"Picture I got, s'gone." It's gone. It could have fallen, couldn't have, he wouldn't -</p><p>"Well now, hold on there, kiddo. Can't have gone far." Joe raises his voice and the others still immediately. "Someone here got something that don't belong to them?"</p><p>No one moves. He can see them all looking at each other, trying to figure out who did it. The only one who doesn't look is Len. <br/><br/>He looks straight at Daryl instead. </p><p>"Someone's got something of Daryls and they'd best give it back. Now." Joe's voice brooks no argument. <br/><br/>Len spits. "Hell, ain't took nothin' of his. Ain't like he claimed it."<br/><br/>"It was in my fucking jacket," Daryl snarls, and Len laughs. <br/><br/>"So? Y'only ever claimed the damn crossbow." Len makes his voice a falsetto and clutches his chest. "Oh, no, don't gotta claim nothin' -"<br/><br/>"So you gonna take the shirt off my back now?" Joe asks, his voice deceptively mild. The others are shifting, but Len doesn't move, stays ramrod tall. <br/><br/>"No, Joe. But he gave me the jacket. He -"<br/><br/>"Didn't give you shit!" Daryl hisses, and Len laughs again. <br/><br/>"Whatever, man. Next time, maybe you'll think before you start handin' your shit over to people. See? We're both gettin' somethin' outta this. You get a lesson, and I -" Len pulls the picture out of his pocket, the flower pin dangling off it. "I get some new jackin' material. An' it's a two for one deal, mommy and baby -"<br/><br/>Daryl isn't even aware that he's moved until he tackles Len. He gets in two good punches - Len's lip is bleeding - but Len is bigger than him and Len has wanted this from the start, Daryl realizes. Then he's the one on the floor and Len is whaling on him and Daryl can't get away -</p><p>And then Joe is there, pulling Len off of him, shoving him to the ground. Len looks up, startled. <br/><br/>"What the fuck are you doing?" Joe asks. "You stealin' from me?"<br/><br/>"I - no, Joe, no way, I ain't -"<br/><br/>"You took that boy's shit, that boy's mine. Means his shit is mine. Means you stole from me." Joe kicks Len in the stomach. <br/><br/>"Joe, man, I - I din't mean it like that, I wouldn't a -"<br/><br/>"You hit him? That's stealin' from me too." Joe kicks Len in the face. Daryl can hear Len's nose crunch. "You messing with him, you're messin' with my claim. And that - that's against the rules."<br/><br/>Len's eyes are wide in his too pale face, blood smeared all over it. "Joe, I - I'm sorry, I wouldn't - "</p><p>"You said he give you the jacket. Daryl says he didn't. Who am I meant to believe, huh?"<br/><br/>"Joe."</p><p>"You lied. You stole. It's on you, man. It's always on you." Joe backs up like he's going to kick Len again, then stops. Len almost melts with relief. Until Joe turns around. <br/><br/>"Teach him a lesson, gents."<br/><br/>And they do.</p><hr/><p>Later, Joe comes over and sits down next to Daryl. Daryl looks at him. <br/><br/>"Here," Joe says, and he tosses the photo into his lap. <br/><br/>It's got blood on it. But just a little. Sophia's face is still there, her gaptoothed grin, her freckles. Carol's face has a blot over it, but he spits on his fingers and rubs and he can get a lot of it off. <br/><br/>And the pin's got blood on it too, but it doesn't matter. It'll come off. <br/><br/>Or it won't. Either way, at least he has it.</p><p>Joe is looking at him, and Daryl says "Thanks." He thinks it's the first time he's spoken to Joe first. <br/><br/>Joe smiles at him. "Hey. Don't got to thank me for enforcing the rules. Right?"<br/><br/>Daryl nods. <br/><br/>"You're mine, kid. Not gonna let anyone fuck with what's mine. Understand?"<br/><br/>No. Yes. Daryl just nods again. <br/><br/>"Who is it? Your ma?"<br/><br/>"Naw," Daryl says. He looks at it. "Jus' - somebody I knew." <br/><br/>Joe nods. "Well. It's yours. No one else is going to fuck with it."<br/><br/>Daryl nods again. <br/><br/>"Come on. Time to sleep. Big day tomorrow. Gonna catch up with that fucker murdered Lou and choked out Tony."<br/><br/>Daryl nods. He folds the picture up again, so Carol and Sophia can't see him. He pins it to the inside of his shirt this time, feels it against his chest. Stiff and slightly crackly. He stiffens as Joe's arm goes over him, brushes against it. Daryl can feel in crinkling against his skin. <br/><br/>He closes his eyes and tries to sleep. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Us (Part 2)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Parts of this chapter are from the episode A.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They leave the train tracks the next day. "They're ahead of us," Joe says. He's got a flask on his hip he takes a sip from as he explains the plan. "But they're following the tracks. We cut across the woods, here, we'll cut them off at the head by the end of the day. Make 'em pay for what they done."<br/><br/>The others nod. They're quiet. Daryl can't tell if it's because they murdered Len or because Len was a loudmouth and without him, it's a quieter bunch. Guess it doesn't really matter. <br/><br/>They'll be distracted tonight, Daryl thinks. Catching up with whoever, they're going to be busy making them pay. And maybe they won't notice Daryl slip away. He's better in the woods than any of them except Len, and Len was the one who watched closest anyway. <br/><br/>He'll go tonight. Three days is more than enough to know this ain't going to end well. And he's got to find Beth. <br/><br/>It's only a matter of time before he catches a beating and this one won't end with welts on his damn back. <br/><br/>"You want a drink, little man?" Joe asks. He holds out the flask to Daryl. "White Lightning. Easiest thing to make with the least amount of supplies."<br/><br/>Daryl shakes his head. "Naw. M'good."<br/><br/>"Y'ever had a drink, Daryl?" Joe asks. <br/><br/>Daryl shrugs. "Yeah. 'Fore everythin' fell apart, I guess." He doesn't say anything about the moonshine, about Beth. That's private. <br/><br/>"Fell apart. Well, I never looked at it like that." The man takes a swig. "Seems to me like things are finally starting to fall together." He grins at Daryl and holds out the booze again. "At least for guys like us."<br/><br/>Daryl looks at him, and Joe grins. "Oh, you and me? We're two sides of the same coin, son. Forty years apart maybe, but it's like looking in a mirror. Livin' like this? Surviving? We've been doin' it from the start. S'why you killed your old man, right?"<br/><br/>Daryl doesn't say anything. Joe's voice goes sharp. "I said -"<br/><br/>"Right," Daryl mumbles. <br/><br/>"Right!" Joe says cheerfully. <br/><br/>"Getting closer," Billy says. He's looking at a sign. <br/><br/>TERMINUS. SANCTUARY FOR ALL. COMMUNITY FOR ALL. THOSE WHO ARRIVE, SURVIVE. </p><p>"Bullshit," Harley spits. "These people're fucking idiots."</p><p>"And liars," Joe says. He spits.</p><p>"Can't believe anyone actually follows this shit," Tony says.<br/><br/>"Yeah, well, they're idiots who killed Lou and choke you out," Joe says sharply. "That proves they're dumb as rocks because it means they're dead."<br/><br/>He turns to Daryl. "I tell you about this guy?"<br/><br/>He's told Daryl at least three times about this guy. "Yeah," Daryl says. <br/><br/>But it doesn't matter, because Joe tells him again. "We're in a house, a house we claimed, minding our own business, and this walking piece of fecal matter was hiding in the home. Our home. Which we claimed. Strangled our man Lou and left him to turn. Lou came at all of us. Almost took Billy with him." Billy scowls. "Guy lit out, we tracked him, we'll be caught up with him by dark."<br/><br/>"How're you gonna know it's him?" Daryl asks. <br/><br/>"Tony saw his face. Good enough for a reckoning."<br/><br/>"Ain't just him either," Tony says. "You saw that stuff they left behind. Gotta be a lady too. Maybe more."<br/><br/>Yeah. They'll probably be too distracted to follow him tonight.</p><p>Daryl tries not to let himself feel bad for whoever they're following. <br/><br/>He's not as good at it as he used to be.</p><hr/><p>It is quieter without Len. Even Joe talks less. Which doesn't mean he doesn't talk at all. He always talks to Daryl. <br/><br/>"You didn't like that earlier," he says, and Daryl wonders if he means Len's body, twisted and bloody, outside the depot when they left that morning. "When I said we were the same."<br/><br/>Daryl shrugs.<br/><br/>"Hell, don't know who else you'd want to be like. You wanna grow up and be like Dan? Like Len?"<br/><br/>Like Hershel, he thinks. Like Rick. A man of honor. <br/><br/>But Daryl doesn't have that in him. He's not cut from that cloth, he never was. So he just shrugs again. <br/><br/>"Ain't figurin' I'll get to grow up," he says, and Joe laughs. <br/><br/>"Smart. But you will. You're with us now, and I know you. Yeah, I do. You're a survivor. You couldn't do otherwise if you tried." Joe spits off to the side of the tracks. "You like cats?"<br/><br/>For a bizarre moment, Daryl wonders if Joe knows about the kitten he found, the one his dad killed. But Joe couldn't know about that. So Daryl shrugs. "I'unno."<br/><br/>"I do. Had one since I was three years old. Love cats." The man sounds fond. "Vicious creatures."<br/><br/>Daryl blinks. Looks down at the path, at his boots trodding over it. <br/><br/>"Anyway, I'll tell you, and this is true -" Joe interrupts himself for a second, laughs. "Well, I mean, course it's true. Wouldn't be much of a leader if I broke my own rules."<br/><br/>Daryl nods, and Joe's hand clamps down on the back of his neck. "Ain't nothin' sadder," Joe says into his ear, "than an outdoor cat thinks he's an indoor cat."<br/><br/><em>You're not an indoor cat, </em>Carol whispers in his ear. <br/><br/>And he's not sure if it's Joe or Carol's words that make him shiver. </p><p>"I ain't a bad guy," Joe says quietly. "I got my rules, I got my code, same as anybody. And I don't waver. That's better than most men. You too, kid, you ain't gonna waver. Never. I can tell."<br/><br/>They walk a little longer, Joe's hand still fastened over the back of his neck. <br/><br/>"I ain't a bad guy," Joe says again. "I don't want to force you. But I will if I have to."<br/><br/>Daryl can't breathe. He can't look at Joe. He can't do anything but keep walking, mechanically, one foot in front of another. Like a puppet with Joe pulling the strings. <br/><br/>"Hell, I was a virgin when I was your age, I remember. Tough to talk about." Joe's hand feel like it's burning into the back of his neck, like even if Daryl can get away he'll be marked for the rest of his life by Joe's hand. "Your old man tell you about the birds and the bees?"<br/><br/>Daryl can't speak. Shakes his head. <br/><br/>"Yeah, didn't think so. Well, and it's not like he woulda covered this, either." Joe is quiet. "Well?"<br/><br/>"Well what?" Daryl asks. His voice is rusty and cracks. <br/><br/>"Well, what? Well, am I gonna have to force you?"<br/><br/>Daryl can't look at him. "I been good to you," Joe says. "I can stay good to you. Or I can not. Your choice." Joe uses the fingers at the back of Daryl's neck to turn his head towards Joe. "So?"<br/><br/>Daryl nods. <br/><br/>"What's that? I didn't quite catch that -"<br/><br/>"Naw," Daryl says. His voice is so small, he hates it, he hates himself. "Y'ain't - you don't gotta force me."<br/><br/>"Good boy," Joe says. And he lets go of his neck. <br/><br/>He's going tonight. The second the distraction comes, he's gone. <br/><br/>That's the only choice he has. And it's no choice at all. </p><hr/><p>They haven't caught up with the guy who killed Lou before nightfall and Joe is pissed. <br/><br/>He won't let them stop walking. <br/><br/>"I said we'd catch up to them today, I meant today," he snarls when Billy brings up stopping for a third time. "You calling me a liar?"<br/><br/>After that, nobody says anything. <br/><br/>They're going to have to stop soon, Daryl knows. He bites at his thumbnail and worries over what it will mean for him if Joe's still in this temper when they stop for the night. <br/><br/>He can't leave without a distraction. He can't. They'll find him so quick and everything will be worse, if they catch him after he said -</p><p>"There," Tony says suddenly, and they all converge on the tracks. <br/><br/>There's walkers dead there. Fresh ones. <br/><br/>"It's them," Tony says. <br/><br/>"How the fuck can you tell? Just a pile of dead roamers, ain't -"<br/><br/>"It's them," Joe says, and no one asks how he knows. "We're close. Let's go."<br/><br/>And they do. <br/><br/>Daryl is starting to wonder if he could just slip away in the dark - just stop answering and melt back, climb a tree and hope they don't look up when they search for him - when they see the fire, off in the distance. <br/><br/>"Jackpot," Joe says. His teeth gleam in the darkness. <br/><br/>"Well, boys. Let's go teach this fuck a lesson." <br/><br/>And Daryl lets himself hope that maybe his chance is coming.</p><hr/><p>They put Daryl in the circle, in between Harley and Billy. "Just like we did to you," Joe whispers. "We creep up quiet and get 'em surrounded before they know what him them. No gaps."<br/><br/>He nods. Takes his place. <br/><br/>They start to close in. <br/><br/>Daryl starts to walk slower. Maybe it can happen now, right away, maybe he won't even have to see the people he's trading for his own skin - <br/><br/>"Keep up," Harley hisses, and he matches his pace to the others again. </p><p>He can hear the people at the fire whispering. </p><p>"Don't even know if this place is there anymore -"<br/><br/>Wait, Daryl thinks. Wait. </p><p>The world is tilting underneath him and he grips his bow as hard as he can. He's hearing things again, he just wishes it, it's not true, it's not - <br/><br/>"Oh dearie me," Joe says. The click of the gun. </p><p>Michonne goes for her sword but Tony is there, behind her, his own gun at her head. <br/><br/>And Rick, Rick, Rick is there, hands up, a look of terrible fury on his face.</p><hr/><p>"You screwed up asshole," Joe says. Daryl is frozen as Harley and Billy surge out of the bushes, guns drawn. They don't even notice he isn't with them. <br/><br/>He should run. This is what he wanted, this is his chance, it's the only chance he'll get - </p><p>But Rick is alive. Michonne is alive. And, he sees, with a knot in his stomach as Dan yanks open the door to the car -</p><p>So is Carl. </p><p>They're his family. And they're alive. </p><p>He can't leave them behind again. <br/><br/>"You hear me? You screwed up."<br/><br/>Rick doesn't say anything. Just breathes. His hands are still in front of him, out. Daryl sees a slight tremor work its way through. <br/><br/>"Today is a day of reckoning, sir," Joe crows. "Restitution. A balancing of the whole damn universe."<br/><br/>He only has three bolts. Even if he took out Joe and Tony, they'd still be outnumbered, and Dan's got Carl. <br/><br/>"And I was thinkin' of turning in for the night on New Year's Eve," Joe says. He laughs. "It's shapin' up to be a pretty great night."<br/><br/>Daryl feels himself moving forward on that. <br/><br/>"Whose gonna count down the ball dropper with me, huh? Daryl! You wanna start us off?"<br/><br/>They look at him - Michonne, Rick, even Carl, fighting to stay in the car. <br/><br/>"Come over here, kid. Go on. Ten Mississippi -"<br/><br/>Rick's hasn't moved and Michonne hasn't either but their eyes are fixed on him. <br/><br/>"Nine Mississippi. Doncha know how to count, boy? I said -"<br/><br/>"Wait," Daryl says, and it comes out in a croak. "Wait -"<br/><br/>"What?" Joe snaps. "You're stoppin' me on nine, Daryl."<br/><br/>"I - hold up," he says. Words are never good even at good times and this is the worst time, they're slipping and sliding around in his head -</p><p>"This is the guy who killed Lou so we got nothin' to talk about," Harley spits. <br/><br/>"Give the kid a second, Harley. Nowadays, we got nothin' but time." Joe is smiling at him but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Y'know how hard it is to get Daryl to say anything. Might as well hear him out."<br/><br/>"I - you gotta let them go," Daryl blurts out, and he knows right away it's the wrong thing. <br/><br/>"I gotta?" Joe asks. His tone is still that forced friendly but his eyes are like ice. "Oh well, excuse me, let's let these people go, guys, after all, I <em>gotta</em> -"<br/><br/>"Please," Daryl says. He swallows. "They ain't - these're good people."<br/><br/>"I think Lou would disagree with you on that point. I'll have to speak for him and all because your friend here strangled him in a bathroom."<br/><br/>Daryl swallows again. "Please, I - you want blood, I get that. You want -" But he can't say it out loud, not in front of Michonne and Carl, not in front of Rick. "I'll give it to you. Whatever you want. I - you don't gotta, uh, force me." He feels Michonne's eyes boring into him and he looks at Joe instead, Joe with an unreadable look on his face. "I -"<br/><br/>"Shut up," Joe snaps, and Daryl falls silent. <br/><br/>"You're offering me what's already mine," Joe says calmly. "I claimed you. You already said earlier I wouldn't have to force you. You implyin' differently now, that - that sounds like a lie."<br/><br/>His spine shivers. <br/><br/>"You say these are good people when they killed our friend - now that I know is a lie." Daryl's eyes squeeze shut. "It's a lie!"<br/><br/>The others are on him right away - Billy slamming a gun into his stomach, Harley ripping his crossbow out of his hands, he's down on the ground before he knows it, curled in a ball, trying to protect his ribs, his organs, trying to - </p><p>"Teach him, fellas! But not all the way. I'm gonna have to give him a little lesson of my own later, when we're done here."<br/><br/>He hears Rick yelling "You leave him be!", hears Carl crying out, and he doesn't know who Rick is talking about and he doesn't care. <br/><br/>"You'll get yours. You just wait your turn," Tony says. <br/><br/>He can hear Dan, almost giggling, "Shit man, been waiting fucking days for this, since the fucking kid showed up I been -"<br/><br/>"Listen, it was me, it was just me -"<br/><br/>"See now, that's right! That's not some damn lie! Shoulda taught that boy better manners when you had him." Joe cocks his head at Rick, then Daryl catches a knee to the eye and he can't see them anymore. "Who is he to you? Y'ain't his pa - he killed him, he told me. Unless that was a lie too."<br/><br/>"They're mine and if you hurt either one of them - "<br/><br/>"See, that's where you're wrong. I claimed that boy. He belongs to me. Look, we can settle this. We're reasonable men. First, we'll teach Daryl a lesson. Then you two can watch while we have the girl. Then the boy. Then we shoot you and then we'll be square! Well, you and I will be. I don't know about Daryl."<br/><br/>His mouth is full of blood and he scrambles, tries to get away, under the car, some cover, something - </p><p>Carl is whimpering, he can hear him nearby, and maybe if Daryl can get to him Dan'll get distracted, Dan'll join in on Daryl and Carl can -</p><p>And then the gun goes off and Carl is screaming "Dad! Dad!" </p><p>"I got him. Oh, it's gonna be so much worse now -"<br/><br/>Another gunshot, a scuffle. He can hear Carl still, whimpering, flailing, and with those gunshots - maybe he and Carl are the last two left. He redoubles his efforts to get away. If he can make it to Carl, maybe - </p><p>"The hell are you gonna do now, sport -"</p><p>And then all there is is screaming, screaming and gurgling and another gunshot and Daryl doesn't know what happened and he doesn't care, he just takes advantage, he just fights fingernails scratching, arms windmilling. He gets somebody by the jacket and slams them into the car over and over until their head is a sickening mess. He drops them. Whoever it was was the one holding his bow. <br/><br/>The last one - Billy, he thinks - is running, but once he has his bow that isn't a problem anymore.<br/><br/>The only one left is Dan, and he's holding Carl. </p><p>"He's mine," Rick says, moving forward, knife in hand. <br/><br/>And they all watch as Rick takes care of him. <br/><br/>It lasts a long time. And in the end, Daryl is the one to stab him in the head. </p><p>And then it's quiet.</p>
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<a name="section0013"><h2>13. A</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Michonne and Carl spend the night in the car. Michonne asks him in too, but he shakes his head. </p><p>"I should - keep watch," he murmurs. </p><p>"Daryl -" Michonne says. Carl isn't saying anything. He hasn't since his dad took care of Dan. Michonne has him in her arms. "Come in with us, Daryl. We can -"</p><p>But he can't. He can't. </p><p>He climbs up to the roof of the car instead. His whole body hurts, and he takes count. His ribs are bruised, probably, but he can breathe okay. His face feels lumpy and sore - he's probably got another shiner. His knuckles are bleeding sluggishly, from him trying to fight back, and he's got scrapes all over from pushing against the asphalt. His jeans are ragged but they were already. His sleeve on his jacket is busted, but it'll keep. </p><p>His photo of Carol and Sophia is a little more crumpled, but not noticeably so. The pin pricked into him when he was getting kicked - there's a series of shallow scratches, but none of them serious.</p><p>He finds himself rubbing at them all night, keeping watch. </p><p>Until the sun comes up.</p><p>He goes off to find water first. He wonders if they'll be there when he gets back, or if they'll have moved on without him. He wouldn't blame them. He was with those guys. Ain't like they know why. They should cut him loose first chance they get. </p><p>He raids Joe and thems stuff for water - finds enough in Billy's bag, then takes Joe's flask, his knife. Harley's last can of Spaghettios. Claimed, he thinks whenever he finds something. </p><p>Claimed, claimed, claimed.</p><p>When he gets back, Rick still hasn't moved. He wonders if Rick moved all night. </p><p>He sidles over to him, slow. He doesn't want to spook him, and if Rick is gonna whup him, he'd rather have some warning. But Rick doesn't move. Just keeps sitting there. Staring out. </p><p>Daryl sits down next to him. Holds out the bottle of water. His bandana. Rick looks at them like he's never seen anything like them before. </p><p>"We should save it," Rick says suddenly. He blinks and looks up at Daryl. "To drink."</p><p>"Y'can't see yourself," Daryl mumbles. He wets the bandana and hands it to Rick. "Carl can."</p><p>Rick takes the cloth and wipes at his face. it does hardly anything.</p><p>He hadn't seen what Rick did last night, but he'd seen the aftermath. Joe's bloody neck, the chunk of flesh on the ground. Rick's beard is a mess of blood. Rick sees him looking and Daryl looks away. </p><p>"I din't - I din't want to be with them," Daryl says. It sounds like a lie, and he doesn't know how to start again. </p><p>"How'd you wind up with them?" Rick asks. </p><p>"Was with Beth," he says. "Got out together, were - " He can't say anymore. Shakes his head. </p><p>"Is she dead?"</p><p>Daryl shakes his head. "She's just - gone," he says. Remembers the car, the squeal of tires. It's only been three days. She could still be -</p><p>"They found me after that," Daryl said. He bites at his thumb. Doesn't look at Rick. "Couple a days ago."</p><p>"They hurt you?"</p><p>Daryl shakes his head. "Naw, nothin' like - naw," he says. He bites at his thumb harder. Tastes blood. "Joe claimed me. That's - what they do, claim things, that's their rule. An' I  - I knew they were bad, but - I was Joe's so nobody else was allowed to fuck with me, so -"</p><p>"Daryl," Rick says, and Daryl looks at him. "Did that guy from last night - that Carl, did he -"</p><p>"Naw, I said," Daryl says. He looks away. Can't take Rick's eyes right now. "I was Joe's." </p><p>They sit in quiet for a minute. "Weren't that different from my dad's rules," Daryl mumbles. "Not the - but the other stuff. Do what he says and you get out all right. Thought I'd get out all right. Till -" He bites his thumb again, relishes the sting. </p><p>"You were alone," Rick says, and his voice is gentle. </p><p>"Joe kept talkin' 'bout some guy, but I din't - I din't know it was you, Rick, I swear, I wouldn't a -"</p><p>"I know," Rick says simply. </p><p>"Last night they said they saw him and I was gonna run, while they were distracted, was gonna loop back an' look for Beth, but -" He swallows, hard. "Then I saw it was y'all, and - "</p><p>"It's not on you, Daryl."</p><p>"I knew what they could do," Daryl says, trying to get Rick to understand. "I knew they were gonna - but I thought it'd be a good time to get out. I didn't see it was you until -"</p><p>"Hey," Rick says, and Daryl shuts up. "It's not on you."</p><p>Daryl shrugs. Feel his back against the car. Can see Joe's feet in the cowboy boots, hovering in his peripheral vision. </p><p>"You being back with us? Here, now? That's - everything," Rick says, and Daryl finds himself looking at Rick's face, drawn to it, like a magnet. Rick is looking at Daryl and his eyes are so blue, especially against all the blood. "That man? He can't claim you. You ain't his."</p><p>Daryl's biting his lip when Rick continued. "You're my boy. Ours. Mine and Carol's and Michonne's - your ours. You weren't ever his. Ever."</p><p>Daryl's vision is going blurry and he blinks rapidly, looks away. "M'sorry," he chokes out, but Rick's hand is on his and he's squeezing fiercely, tightly. </p><p>"You're alive. That's all that matters."</p><p>They sit there for a long moment. </p><p>"What you - did last night?" Daryl says suddenly, and Rick's hand on his fliches. "He - I shoulda done it. Before, I mean. Anyone woulda done that -"</p><p>"No," Rick says. "Not that." He's quiet for a second and he starts to rub at his face again with the bandana. "That's me. Part of me. It's why I'm still here. It's why Carl is. I've got to keep him safe. That's all that matters." Rick looks down into Daryl's face again, but this time his skin is cleaner. "I've got to protect you. All of you. That's what I've got to do. And that's the part of me I need to do that."</p><p>Daryl doesn't know how to answer that. Doesn't like the idea of what's in Rick, what's hiding beneath the skin. What could come out at Daryl if Daryl ever fucks up badly enough. </p><p>They sit in silence for a long time. Then Daryl clears his throat. </p><p>"Found these," he says, and he pulls out the Spaghettios. </p><p>Rick looks at them a moment, then nods. "Breakfast," he says. "Then we've got a ways to go."</p><hr/><p>Michonne and Rick take point. Daryl and Carl bring up the rear. <br/><br/>Carl is quiet. Daryl can't stop looking at the scrape on Carl's cheek. Carl keeps looking at Daryl's black eye. They don't say anything. <br/><br/>"How'd you get out?" Carl asks finally. <br/><br/>"Me'n'Beth, we ran. Bus was gone. Hadda go through the woods."<br/><br/>Carl nods. "Us too."<br/><br/>"Maybe a lotta us," Daryl says. It's Beth's words in his mouth but for a moment, he feels hopeful. He's back with his people. Maybe there are more of them. Maybe at Terminus. They'll get the people they need, fill up on supplies, and then he'll go back and find Beth. <br/><br/>Maybe Beth will even be there already when they arrive. Maybe that's who took her.</p><p>But if they took her, it means it's not a sanctuary after all. <br/><br/>"Missed you," Carl says finally. Daryl looks at him. <br/><br/>"Yeah, man. Same."<br/><br/>"I ate a whole thing of pudding while we were running." <br/><br/>"...Cool?" Daryl says, and Carl holds out his hands. <br/><br/>"Like it was this big. Wish you'd been there. I ate all of it then I almost puked."<br/><br/>"Shit. Beth and I just found pigs feet."<br/><br/>"Gross."<br/><br/>"Naw. S'good." They walk in silence for a moment. <br/><br/>"You okay?" Carl says finally. <br/><br/>"Man, I should be sayin' that to you."<br/><br/>"I'm fine," Carl says. His voice is deeper than it was when they left the prison. His hair is longer too. Longer than Daryl's. "He didn't even - I'm fine."<br/><br/>Daryl thinks about three nights of Joe pressing up against him, his hand slung over his chest. "Man, enough happened for you to be like - feelin' bad or whatever, if you -"<br/><br/>"I'm not," Carl says. He doesn't sound like he's lying, but there's a weird look in his eyes. "I - I'm just. I'm not." He looks up ahead. "My dad -"<br/><br/>"He's gonna be good," Daryl says quickly. "He's - he hadta -"<br/><br/>"I know. I'm glad he did."<br/><br/>Carl looks placid when he says it but his hand grips tighter on his gun. <br/><br/>"You didn't answer," Carl says. "You were with those guys -"<br/><br/>"M'fine," Daryl says. "You're fine, I'm fine."<br/><br/>"Yeah."<br/><br/>"Yeah."<br/><br/>They keep walking. Daryl looks at his feet, kicks at the leaves. Sees something weird. Frowns. <br/><br/>"Man, why you got two different shoes on?"<br/><br/>Carl just sighs. "It's a long story."</p><hr/><p>They approach Terminus from the woods. The walls are spotted with ivy, enough to cover them. They spread out and watch. Carl goes with Michonne.</p><p>Daryl stays with Rick. <br/><br/>"Even if - if this place is good," Daryl says as they walk. "I, uh - I gotta go find Beth."<br/><br/>Rick looks at him. Nods. "We'll see what it is here. Catch our breath. Heal up some. Then, you want to find Beth, we'll all go."<br/><br/>"Naw, y'all don't have to -"<br/><br/>"Daryl," Rick says, and Daryl shuts up. "We're not splitting up again. All right?"<br/><br/>"A'right," Daryl says. They keep walking. <br/><br/>"I'm sorry about Carol."<br/><br/>Her name hurts to hear. <br/><br/>"I - You were right. I was making decisions for you. I should have - let her say goodbye."<br/><br/>Daryl just nods. Stares at the leaves under his feet. <br/><br/>"She - she loves you. You know that, right?"<br/><br/>He thinks of her hand on his shoulder, moving back his hair, wiping blood off of him, getting him outside the fence, bringing him food, making sure he eats. He thinks of her teasing him, of her washing his clothes for him at the Atlanta camp, when she didn't know him from anybody. <br/><br/>"Yeah," Daryl says. His voice is raspy and he swallows. "I know."<br/><br/>They keep walking. </p><hr/><p>They bury the guns. They scale the fence. They go around the back.</p><p>It's not enough.</p><p>They lay down their arms, but they get them back. Daryl thinks that's a good sign. <br/><br/>It isn't.</p><p>Daryl can hear the others talking - <em>why do you do it, fix them a plate, you'll fit right in here</em> - but he can't stop looking at his poncho. <br/><br/>It's his. He knows it is. He found it on a run, used to wear it on the dirt bike. Carol used to tease him about it. "You make fun of my scarf but you go around dressed like that?"<br/><br/>"It ain't fashion or nothin'," Daryl'd grunted. "S'warm."<br/><br/>It is. He wonders who was wearing it when they left the prison. Who had brought it this far.<br/><br/>Who had lost it.<br/><br/>"Rick," he whispers, but Rick is already seeing, and suddenly Rick has Alex, his gun to his throat. <br/><br/>"Where the hell'd you get this watch," Rick asks. </p><p>They should have known sanctuary wouldn't be this easy. </p><hr/><p>It's Hershel's watch. Daryl sees how it gleams in the sunlight. Glenn had taught him how to wind it, once. He stares. <br/><br/>It's Hershel's watch and that means Glenn and Glenn means Maggie and where are they? <br/><br/>Glenn wouldn't give up Hershel's watch. Not ever. </p><p>Not without a fight. <br/><br/>"We got it off a dead one," Gareth says, but Gareth's full of shit and they should have seen that before the got in the fucking courtyard, no way out, nowhere to go -</p><p>"Where are our people?" Rick asks. </p><p>"You didn't answer the question," Gareth says, and Daryl didn't even hear what the question is. But it doesn't matter because Gareth is closing his hand, like a sign, and then - </p><p>And then Alex is dead and they are fighting, Rick firing with the watch still clutched in his hand. </p><p>They're good at this, even with so long apart. Too good, Daryl thinks as a spray of bullets almost hits their feet, causes them to switch direction. They aren't being hunted. They're being herded. </p><p>But they aren't going to just stop running, give up and die, either. That isn't them. So they run, even though they know wherever they're going, it's nowhere good. </p><p>They dart in and around shipping containers, boxes, run past shot out cars - he sees a pile of something, wet and red, but -</p><p>"Keep goin'," Rick pants, and Daryl does.</p><p>"Help!" someone is yelling, a woman, and he looks at Michonne but it's not her. He hears a hollow thumping, hands slamming against shipping crates. <br/><br/>"Help! Let us out!"<br/><br/>They don't let them out. They just keep running.<br/><br/>Until finally, a moment of breath. Inside, no windows. Just candles and quiet. <br/><br/>And names. Lots of names. <br/><br/>"What is this place?" Daryl asks. The names spiral around his feet and out, over and over.</p><p>"These people, I don't think they want to kill us," Michonne pants.</p><p>"No. They were aiming at our feet," Rick says, and he's pacing like a caged animal, they all are, trying to figure out where to go, what to do. </p><p>There's only two options. Rick charges at one, "There -" but it slams shut the second Rick gets close. </p><p>"There!" Daryl yells, and they're all running for the other one, in case it closes too, but Daryl feels like they're being toyed with. They're trapped, all of them, stuck running the maze until -</p><p>Until they aren't any more.</p><p>They're waiting for them on the other side of the wall. </p><p>On the top of the roofs. </p><p>They're stuck. </p><p>"Drop your weapons!" Gareth yells from the top of one of the shipping containers. "Now!"<br/><br/></p><p>Rick drops his first. Daryl follows - drops one arrow, because fuck them, fuck them all - then lets his crossbow clatter down. Michonne is moving so, so slow with her sword, like she's trying to figure out what else she can do, but there's nothing else she can do. She lays it down.</p><p>"Ringleader, go to your left."<br/><br/>To the left is a train car labeled A. </p><p>Rick hesitates. </p><p>"You do what we say, the kids go with you. Anything else, they die and you go in there anyway."<br/><br/>Rick starts walking. </p><p>"Samurai, you next," Gareth yells, and Michonne doesn't take her eyes off of Carl as she goes.<br/><br/>Carl is looking at him like they should be doing something. But Daryl doesn't know what. They can't do anything. Not without the others. </p><p>Until Carl and Daryl are standing there behind them. Alone. <br/><br/>"Stand at the door. Ringleader, samurai, archer."<br/><br/>He wonders how many times Gareth has done this, to be able to give the directions so smoothly. <br/><br/>"The boys!" Rick yells. <br/><br/>A long moment. <br/><br/>"Go on, then." <br/><br/>He and Carl start to move. <br/><br/>"Slowly!"<br/><br/>Daryl didn't think they were going that quick. They slow down. Fall into step next to each other. <br/><br/>"Ringleader, open the door and go in."<br/><br/>"I'll go in with them!" Rick yells. <br/><br/>"Don't make us kill them now!"<br/><br/>Rick opens the door. Daryl watches him do it. That's a good thing, he thinks as he walks, one foot after another. There isn't a lock on it. That's good. <br/><br/>That means there's a way out. </p><p>Carl falls ahead of them as they mount the steps. <br/><br/>Daryl is the last one in. </p><p>It's dark in there, the light from the door the only thing they've got. And then that is gone too, with a clang. Daryl's heart sinks as he hears a bolt slide into place. <br/><br/>Locked in. <br/><br/>Fuck. </p><p>There's a thump from the other end of the train car and Daryl stiffens. Turns, hands up. Ready for whatever is coming. <br/><br/>He just didn't think what would be coming would be Glenn. </p><p>He wasn't ready for that.</p><hr/><p>"Rick?"</p><p>They're all staring at each other like they don't quite recognize the others anymore. </p><p>"You're here," Rick says, and it's so much and not enough at the same time. "You're here."</p><p>Maggie is there too. Sasha. Bob. </p><p>And strangers. </p><p>"They're our friends," Maggie says quickly. Certainty. "They helped save us."<br/><br/>Daryl isn't certain of a lot anymore. But he's certain of Maggie. Of Glenn. Sasha. Carl, Michonne. <br/><br/>Rick. </p><p>He's sure of them. </p><p>"Then they're friends a ours," Daryl says. Maggie looks at him like he just hung the moon. </p><p>"For however long that'll be," the guy in the back with the weird mustache grumbles. <br/><br/>"No," Rick says. "They're gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out."<br/><br/>"Find out what?" the mustache guys asks. <br/><br/>"They're screwing with the wrong people," Rick says. <br/><br/>And that's that.</p><hr/><p>That night they're huddled up to plan. It was hot in the day, boiling, but now, at night, the temperature drops. It's freezing. He finds himself between Glenn and Rick. Rick's behind him. They're all getting as close as possible, but Daryl flinches as Rick brushes up against him. Stupid, stupid - </p><p>"You okay?" Glenn whispers to him. Rick moves away, turns so he and Daryl are back to back. Daryl's too relieved to say anything. <br/><br/>"M'fine," he whispers back. Glenn has Hershel's watch out in his hand. It shines dully in the dim light of the container. He can hear the gentle tick of it.<br/><br/>"It's still ticking," Glenn says, like Daryl can't hear it himself. <br/><br/>"Yeah," Daryl says. He reaches out, hesitantly, careful not to touch Glenn. Traces one fingers over the cool glass front of the watch. <br/><br/>"Hey," Glenn says, and he feels the watch being pushed into his own hand. Feels it rock in it's gentle rhythm, the inner workings grinding forward, forward. <br/><br/>"It's still ticking. See?"<br/><br/>"Yeah," Daryl says again. The ticking feels like it's lining up with his heartbeat. <br/><br/>"So are we."<br/><br/>He can't see Glenn's eyes in the darkness, or see Glenn's hand as it reaches out, slowly, and closes itself over Daryl's hand, over the watch. He starts a little, but after a moment it's like it always was this way. <br/><br/>"Yeah," Daryl says, listening to the hum and whisper of other bodies, of people he cares about breathing and hoping and planning all together in one room. "Yeah. We are."<br/><br/>The gentle ticking of the watch lulls him to sleep. </p><p>They've got a lot of work ahead of them. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Season 4 - finished. Wow. I forget how jarring of an ending that season is. </p><p>Still plugging along at this - just writing it as I go, so as I get to later seasons that I'm less familiar with, things may slow down. But for now, I guess enjoy!</p><p>Onto season 5!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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